


Five

by 8lapetitehirondelle8



Series: The 'Promise' Collection [2]
Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8lapetitehirondelle8/pseuds/8lapetitehirondelle8
Summary: Michael knew it was going to take time and patience to undo the damage done by Lily's biological parents. She still dodged out of the way if you reached for her too quickly and startled her. She was timid in asking for anything, and when she finally did it was almost always something any other child wouldn’t have thought twice about. And she still had night terrors. They were becoming less frequent, but they still occurred.We’re going to need to put our heads together on this. We’ve been operating on the fly and that’s not going to work long-term. Hell, she’s going to have to start school at some point.He stopped.She’ll be five at the end of the month.





	1. Sunday, June 14th, 2009

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this wouldn't exist without my favorite beta and cheerleader, [Pippin McTaggart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippinmctaggart).
> 
> 'Promise' is the first work in this collection, and I recommend you start there or you might be a little confused.
> 
> 'Five' is a continuation, and though you may find it lacking in explosions (sorry) it's overflowing with character and relationship...stuff. The job is secondary to the main story--but it's still there, in case you were worried. I took some liberties with Jesse's backstory to get him into this story line, so apologies for that if it bugs you. Nate shows up in this one, too, so hooray, the gang's all here!
> 
> Oh, and FYI, you're going to encounter some possibly questionable chemistry and psychology. I'm sorry, darlings, but I didn't really feel like ending up on a watch list for researching the chemical composition of C4...

Madeline was floating in that state just between sleep and waking and contemplating her first cigarette of the day when she felt a little weight come crawling up the bed. Without opening her eyes she smiled and said, “I thought you’d go in with your mama and daddy this morning. I know you were missing them while they were gone.”

The weight settled against Madeline’s side and snuggled up. “Nuh-uh. Guns under the pillows. I learned.”

_ That _ had been an interesting morning. Michael and Fiona had come back late from a job which had taken longer than expected. Lily, who was stealthy by nature, had caught her parents by surprise and ended up on the business ends of Michael’s Sig and Fiona’s H&K USP (with the silver slide) when she crept in the following morning with the intention of catching up on some serious hugging. Deer in the headlights didn’t even begin to cover it. The poor kid had immediately succumbed to a panic attack of such ferocity it took them nearly an hour to calm her back down. Michael and Fiona had felt worse than terrible, Madeline had given them an earful-and-a-half, and since then Lily hadn’t crawled into bed with anyone but her grandmother. 

Madeline shifted and wrapped her arms around the little girl. “I’m pretty sure they’d be expecting you this time, baby. You know they didn’t mean to. It’s just the way it is around here.”

“I know. Wanted you, though.” Lily wriggled a little closer.

“You’re my favorite grandchild. Don’t tell the others.”

“You’re silly, Gramma. I’m the only one!”

“Shhh! The others might hear!” Madeline tickled Lily’s ribs and the little girl giggled and wriggled away, but Madeline snagged her before she could go too far. “Get back here.” 

Having a little girl around made a nice change. It wasn’t that Madeline had ever wanted her boys to be anything other than who they were (well, if Michael could dial down the stoicism she’d be happier, but never mind), but Lily was another experience entirely. There were the obvious differences; Lily was much gentler on her toys, and she tended to prefer quiet and constructive activities—unlike Michael and Nate who, as you might expect of boys, had been the opposite. Well, Michael had been quiet and  _ de _ structive.  _ How many mutilated G.I. Joes did I pick up off the front walkway? _ Madeline thought, mentally shaking her head. Lily was like her father in her single-mindedness when she was interested in something, but her projects seldom required scraping melted plastic off the pavement. Nate had been the rambunctious one, much more demanding of Madeline’s attention, but he had also been the more affectionate of her boys and therefore considerably more inclined to allow himself to be doted on and fussed over, and that was where he had something in common with Lily. Of course it had taken some time for the little girl to come to the conclusion that she was far more likely to be hugged than hit when anyone in the family reached for her, but once she had decided that was the case, Lily had developed a ravenous appetite for physical contact and would seek it out regularly, sometimes seemingly for no reason at all beyond suddenly deciding she wanted a snuggle.

Madeline pulled her granddaughter closer and kissed her forehead, hearing Lily let out a happy sigh.  _ I will never understand how your parents could have done the things they did to you, baby. You’re too precious for words. _ They lay together quietly for a while listening to the distant sounds of another hot Miami morning. Intermittent birdsong filtered through the open window, and the quiet whoosh of the occasional passing car. It was a safe, cozy, not-quite-silence, and the gentle breathing of the four-year-old curled up next to her lulled Madeline into a peaceful, meditative state. She knew she couldn’t expect it to last all day, but this little bit of loving quiet she shared with Lily most mornings was something she had come to expect and enjoy, and she sent up a silent prayer that her granddaughter wouldn’t grow out of this phase anytime soon. Eventually Madeline’s reverie was interrupted by a murmur of voices from the next room and, reluctantly deciding that Fiona and Michael ought to get a turn with their little one too, she called out, “I’m sending your daughter in. Don’t overreact!”

“But—”

“Go, baby. Gramma needs coffee.” She gave Lily one last kiss and a gentle push towards the edge of the bed. 

Lily scooted the rest of the way and hopped down, heading for the neighboring bedroom but stopping just short of the doorway, quietly saying, “It’s just me.”

Fiona’s voice was teasing. “Well, are you going to come in or are you going to stand out there all day?”

Lily peeked around the door. Seeing Michael and Fiona together and smiling, she scrambled up onto the bed and burrowed under the blankets into the perfectly Lily-sized space between them.

 

~~~

 

Michael had gone to the loft to do some post-job cleanup and sort out some supplies. He was stowing some of their less-legal paraphernalia away and stopped to take stock of the contents of a large plastic storage box. They were going to need to get their hands on some more C4—they’d used most of their supply on this job. 

_ Well, Fi’ll be happy to hear that _ . 

He closed the box and pushed it into a cubby in the wall, closing the door and stacking another two boxes filled with assorted hardware in front of it. Moving to the workbench, he pulled out the solvent and started stripping his Sig. He didn’t need to think to dismantle the gun any more, and as his muscle memory took over the work, his brain moved on to more pressing matters. 

It had been almost a month since the Bates job, which meant that Lily had been with them about seven weeks all told. They were all still adjusting—that was to be expected. 

Madeline was taking it all in stride, of course. She had been here before.  _ It’s giving her a chance to do things differently than when Dad was around. To make up for the things she blames herself for _ .  _ We’d definitely be up a creek without her. _

Sam’s ease with Lily had been a surprise from the beginning, but a pleasant one. Michael still couldn’t quite figure out where his best friend had developed the ability to comprehend the little girl but, like with his mother, he was grateful for it.  _ Maybe it’s just something that comes with age.  _ He smiled.  _ Probably shouldn’t mention that. _

He checked the spring in the magazine that had been in the Sig, testing the tension before setting it off to one side.  _ Fi’s doing okay, _ he thought.  _ At least, I think she is. _ They hadn’t really talked about it, and Michael had the sudden realization that they probably should. The two of them were bound to Lily now, irrevocably. He didn’t regret it, but once the initial excitement had eased and the reality set in, it came with a little doubt-shadow. They needed to be what Lily needed. He sighed. That was a conversation he had no idea how to have.  _ I’m surprised Fi hasn’t tried to have it already. That’s not like her. I should have been ducking for cover to get away from this discussion weeks ago. _

Yes, he was definitely going to have to check in with Fiona.

As for Lily, Michael knew it was going to take time and patience to undo the damage done by her biological parents. She still dodged out of the way if you reached for her too quickly and startled her. She was timid in asking for anything, and when she finally did it was almost always something any other child wouldn’t have thought twice about. And she still had night terrors. They were becoming less frequent, but they still occurred.

Michael’s hands started reassembling the gun. 

_ We’re going to need to put our heads together on this. We’ve been operating on the fly and that’s not going to work long-term. Hell, she’s going to have to start school at some point.  _ He stopped.  _ She’ll be five at the end of the month.  _

 

~~~

 

Sam and Lily had dropped Madeline off for one of her twice-monthly salon appointments and were strolling down the beach. Well, Sam was strolling. Lily was running here and there picking up interesting shells and rocks, then getting distracted by the water and racing the waves up the sand, then darting back to Sam to give him her treasures to keep in his pockets and scampering off again.

This time she had gotten a decent distance ahead of him and he called out, “Lily!”  

She turned.

“Far enough, okay?”

“‘Kay!” she called back before something caught her eye and she was down at the water’s edge again.

“Well, well,” said a voice behind Sam.

He turned, and found himself looking at an attractive middle-aged brunette with a very familiar face. “Brenda?”

“It’s been a while. How are you?”

“Can’t complain, darlin’. You?”

“The same. Is that your…?” Brenda motioned to Lily who was digging in the sand just beyond the reach of the waves.

“Niece,” Sam answered.

“I don’t remember you having one of those.”

“It’s a long story.” He looked down the beach at Lily, who had stopped digging and was watching him and Brenda cautiously. “I’d introduce you, but she’s really shy around new people.”

Brenda smiled and shook her head. “I feel that of all people, you would be the  _ last _ person to forget what I do for a living.”

“Well, yeah, but...”   


“Children can benefit from psychotherapy as well as adults, you know. I work with them, too.”

“You do?”

“I do, and I’m pretty well-versed in dealing with the shy ones, but I understand.” She looked at her watch. “I’d better get going—I’m meeting a friend for drinks in half an hour. It was good to see you, Sam.”

“You, too, Bren. Take care, yeah?”

Brenda gave him a wink and started back towards the promenade. Sam watched her go, and when he turned around Lily was standing about four feet away. “What’s up, squirt?”

She closed the gap and took hold of his hand. “Nothin’.”

Sam waited. He knew the question would come eventually.

“Uncle Sam?”

“Hmm?”

“Who was that?”

“A friend.”

“Oh.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but the finer points of romance weren’t something he really wanted to explain to a four-year-old, especially because this example didn’t fall into the ‘and they lived happily ever after’ category. The decision to stop seeing each other had been perfectly amicable. Sam had felt awful about it, but Brenda had a knack for asking questions that delved into places he would rather forget entirely—and sometimes they had just violated his Department of Defense-issued security clearance. It wasn’t that she had ever done it out of malice or pure nosiness, but it was something Sam knew he could never adjust to for the long-term. Brenda had been understanding, not that he had expected her to be otherwise. 

He looked down at Lily. “It’s about time to go pick Gramma up. Can we sort through your treasures and just pick out the best ones? If we take all of them home my pants are going to fall down—they’re heavy!”

Lily dissolved into a fit of giggles as Sam emptied his pockets onto the sand.

He harrumphed, “Well I’m glad  _ you  _ think it’s funny.”

“It is!” she exclaimed as she set to sorting out the pile of things she’d collected into three smaller piles.

“What’s this, ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘maybe’?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay.” Sam eased himself down on the sand next to Lily with a grunt and let her get on with her sorting.

She was quiet for a few minutes and then pointed at the ‘maybe’ pile and asked, “What do you think?”

Sam pushed the pile around with his finger for a second, making it into two smaller heaps. “Keep those, get rid of those. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He started loading up his pockets and Lily tried to rid herself of the sand on her legs. When she was satisfied, she grabbed Sam’s hand and they headed back to the car. “Uncle Sam?”

“Hmm?” He looked down at her. She had her thinking face on and was chewing her lip.  _ What’s going on in that little head this time? _ he wondered.

Lily looked up at him for a second and then said, “Never mind.”

“No, tell me. What’s up?”

“Why don’t you…Is yours dead, too?”

“My what?” Sam was confused.

“Your…Like Gramma’s. Hers is dead.”

“I don’t understand, squirt. Gramma’s—” Then it clicked. “Oh, you mean Gramma’s husband, don’t you. Michael’s dad?”

Lily nodded.

“And you want to know if I had someone like that and what happened to her?”

She nodded again.

“Well, I used to, a long time ago. She’s not dead, just…far away. We sort of stopped being friends and that was that. It happens like that sometimes.”

“Oh.”

Sam waited for a follow-up question, and when it didn’t come he was relieved. The fact that he had never actually officially divorced his ‘on a whim’ bride from their impromptu marriage back in the ‘70s was complicated enough for adults to fathom. They had reached the car. Sam helped Lily get buckled into her car seat, moved her treasures from his pocket to the cup holder, and set off to pick up Madeline.

 

~~~

 

In addition to Madeline, Sam and Lily picked up dinner, and Michael and Fiona met them at the house. They spent the evening together, and when Fiona went to put Lily to bed Sam made to head home, but Michael stopped him.

“Can you stay a while?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

“I think we all need to talk about this whole Lily situation.”

Sam looked at him calculatedly. “You having second thoughts, brother?”

“What? No!” Michael said. “Absolutely not.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“So am I,” Madeline said pointedly.

“Look,” Michael said. “I just—we need a plan or something. I mean, she’s going to be five in a couple of weeks, which means we need to think about getting her into a school in the fall, and the whole living situation is kind of weird, and—”

“Mike,” Sam said calmly. “We’ll figure it out. Let’s just wait for Fi and then we’ll talk it through, okay?”

Michael sank down into an armchair in the living room, flopping his head back and running a hand down his face. “Yeah. Okay.”

Madeline wandered over carrying four beers. Sam took one from her and sat on one end of the sofa. She handed the second to Michael and set the third on the coffee table for Fiona, sitting down at the opposite end of the sofa from Sam with the fourth. They were silent for a few minutes, listening to the murmurs and giggles coming from Lily’s room down the hall. Eventually everything went quiet and Fiona walked out, joining them in the living room and snagging her beer as she settled on the floor, resting her back on Michael’s knees.

“Thought you were going,” she said to Sam.

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“Usually.”

“Guys,” Michael groaned. “Not now.”

Fiona leaned her head back and looked at him. “What’s going on?”

Michael ran a thumb across her forehead, stopping momentarily to pick a speck of glitter out of her hair which had probably found its way there via Lily’s stuffed hippo’s tutu. “She get to sleep okay?”

“She was getting there. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just think we need to figure out how we’re going to deal with her long-term.”

“She’s a child, not a problem, Michael.” 

Michael slumped back in his seat.

“Look,” Sam said. “I think what Mike means is that we need to do some forward planning. You know, school and stuff, how the living situation is going to work, that kind of thing. Am I on the right track?”

“Pretty much.” Michael sat back up again. “Mom, is it okay if Lily lives here permanently? I think it’s probably better than the loft, or half here and half there—more, I don’t know, stable.”

“Of course it’s fine! I was going to suggest that anyway. You’re going to keep the loft for business?”

“Yeah.”

“Maddie, she can stay with me at the condo if you’d rather,” Fiona offered.

Michael asked, “You’re going to keep the condo?” 

“Where else did you think I was going to be, Michael?” When Michael just looked at her, she gave a derisive huff. “You didn’t think.”

“I guess not.”

Fiona sighed. “I do still run a side clientele. You’ve got the loft, I’ve got the condo. That can’t change.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Considering the general demographic of your ‘side clientele’, though, I don’t think Lily staying there is really a good idea.”

Fiona considered this. “You’re right. Sorry, Maddie, looks like you’re stuck.”

“Well, since I’m not thinking of it as ‘being stuck’, that’s all fine by me.” Madeline raised an eyebrow. “‘She’s a child, not a problem’, remember?” Fiona’s head bowed a little at Madeline’s chastisement. “So here’s what I think.” Madeline continued. “We leave Lily where she is, and we’ll do up Nate’s room so that any of the three of you can stay when you’re not on a job. And I do expect you all to be around as much as possible—all  _ three _ of you,” she said pointedly, looking at Sam.

“You’ll get no argument here, Mad,” Sam replied.

“Good. I’ll call the district office in the morning and see if I can get her registered at Seaview—it’s closest. Sam, did the paperwork you pulled have her immunization record?”

“I’ll have to check the file.”

“Can you get it if it’s not there?”

“Should be able to, yeah.”

“Michael, what was the name of that doctor who ran the clinic? You remember, the one who was being pushed around by some drug dealer?”

“David.”

“We’re probably going to need to get in touch with him because it’ll be easier to take Lily to him for anything she needs to start school since we don’t have—Oh. Someone needs to figure out how to change things with Social Security, because I can only assume her number is still assigned under ‘Harris’. And we need to set up a bank account, but we can’t do that until we take care of Social Security.”

“I know a guy. I should be able to figure the Social Security part out,” Sam said.

“Fine,” Madeline confirmed. “She lives here, we get her set up for kindergarten in the fall, Sam will sort the documents out—forge ‘em like you did the birth certificate, I don’t care. Just make sure that on paper she is and always has been a Westen. Once we get the bank account up and running we’ll discuss percentages, because I expect a portion of job profits to go into that account  _ without fail _ . That should cover things to start, anyway.”

Michael had expected his mother to get things going in the right direction, but the fact that the solutions which had been elusive to him came so immediately and obviously to her left him gaping like a fish out of water. “Mom.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Madeline shook her head and smiled. “You’re welcome. I’ve done this before, remember? You’ll figure it out. Lily’s the most important thing now, just remember that.”

Michael felt Fiona shift a little against his legs and looked down. Even in profile he could tell her brain was working on something.  _ Definitely need to check in with her, _ he thought as he watched her give herself a little shake and lean forward to put her bottle back on the table.

“Maddie, there’s a crayon halfway under the couch. Lily must have missed it when she was cleaning up.”

Madeline reached down to retrieve the crayon, shifting the dust ruffle as she did, and Michael saw Fiona’s eyes narrow. “What’s up, Fi?”

Fiona slid over to the sofa and got down on her stomach. She retrieved a pile of papers from just behind the dust ruffle and looked at a few of them, her face becoming increasingly concerned each time she flipped to a new one. “Michael, come over here.”

Sam and Madeline made room for them on the sofa and they squeezed in. Fiona had found a stack of Lily’s drawings, but they were a complete departure from the child’s favorite hippos and ocean critters and landscapes with trees and rainbows.

The colors were mostly dark. There were two faceless people in threatening poses who figured in a decent number of the pictures, along with a smaller faceless person, either being harmed in some way by one or both of the larger figures, or hunkered down in a corner of the scene. A couple of the drawings were human bodies with devilish monster faces. The worst, though, were the self-portraits. There were several, all showing Lily in various states of abuse—bruised up and bleeding, like she had been when Michael and Fiona found her. There was silence as they stared at the pictures in front of them. Fiona and Madeline reached for each other without thinking, and Sam just kept shaking his head. 

Michael was practically vibrating with a whirlwind of feelings so strong and changeable he couldn’t even begin to fathom one before it gave way to another, and then another.  _ I wish we had found you sooner, Lily-girl. None of this should ever have happened.  _ He took a deep breath and collected the drawings back into a pile.

It was Sam who broke the silence. “I know someone. I’ll meet with her tomorrow if I can.”

“What kind of someone?” Michael asked.

“Psychiatrist. Psychologist. Therapist. Whatever they’re calling it these days.”

Michael bristled at the idea. “Sam—”

“No, Mike,” Sam said firmly. “This is beyond us, even if we tried to do it together.”

He wasn’t thrilled about Sam’s assertion, but Michael had to admit that his best friend had a point. “How well do you know this person?” 

“We used to be an item.”

“Will she still talk to you, or did she burn all your clothes on her front lawn?” Fiona asked.

Sam let loose a rueful chuckle. “Nah, we’re good. She just sort of lived her work, you know? Kept poking away at my brain without meaning to.”

“Not like there’s much to be poking,” Fiona quipped, disentangling herself from Madeline.

“Shut up,” Sam replied, but it was fond.

Michael looked at the people on the couch with him. After all the years of not being able to rely on anyone but himself, he felt a sudden, intense wave of gratitude—it was an unexpected comfort to have his mom, Sam, and Fiona unequivocally on his side. On  _ Lily’s _ side. He leaned over and slid the pile of drawings back where they had been.

“I’m going to head out,” Sam said and stood up. Madeline stood too, and gave him a hug. “We’ll take care of it, Mad,” he murmured into her hair.

“Thanks, Sam.” As he headed out the door, Madeline looked at Michael and Fiona and asked, “You two staying or going?”

“I’m staying. Fi?”

“Staying.”

“See you in the morning, then.” Madeline walked down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door behind herself.

Fiona followed and was about to duck into Lily’s room but Michael stopped her. “Fi.”

She turned to look at him.

“Come in with me for a minute first?”

She raised an eyebrow but did as he asked. Michael sat on the bed in Nate’s room, leaning against the headboard, and she sat down next to him.

“Fi?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you…are you doing okay?”

She tilted her head back, resting it on the wall behind her, closing her eyes. “What are we doing, Michael?”

Michael wanted to say,  _ I have no fucking idea, and it terrifies me, _ but instead he said, “I’ve been asking myself that.”

“I knew it was going to be difficult, but I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“Well,” Michael said. “Logistically it’s not as bad as I thought. I just didn’t really know what the logistics were.”

“I’m not talking about logistics,” Fiona said. “I’m talking about trying to reverse the damage that’s been done to her.”

“Yeah.” He leaned his head back on the wall, too, and turned to look at Fiona. “Fi?”

She looked back. 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For doing this with me.”

Fiona shook her head. “You’re the one she really needs, not me. I can  _ try _ to understand all the things she’s thinking and feeling, but you just... _ know. _ ”

On one hand, Michael knew that there was a lot of truth to Fiona’s observation. He knew that he was Lily’s protector—he pulled her out of her nightmares and kept her from harm. They did seem to understand each other beyond the normal means of communication, like a little part of her lived in his brain and vice versa. There had been times when something had come on the TV or Lily had overheard a conversation that somehow touched a nerve with her, and when she and Michael had locked eyes in those moments it had felt as though they were saying,  _ I know. You know. We’re not alone anymore. We have each other. _

On the other hand, Michael knew that no one person could be everything Lily needed, and that the little girl already looked to each of them for different reasons. Madeline was Lily’s source of stability, handling everything from snacks to stories to scraped knees, being there for Lily in all capacities just about all of the time. When Lily didn’t understand something she went to Sam—he knew how to explain things to her in a way she could comprehend. He was also who she turned to when she was feeling silly, and Sam was always happy to indulge her shenanigans. And Fiona? She challenged Lily. She encouraged her to really look at the world, at its pieces individually, and what they made when they came together. Lily was learning so much from her, and she probably had no idea it was happening because Fiona had this knack for making everything a game. Fiona  _ inspired _ Lily, and it was one of the most beautiful things Michael had ever witnessed. 

He whispered, “No, Fi. She needs you, too. So do I. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“The Michael Westen I know can do anything that needs to be done without anyone.”

“Maybe the Michael Westen you know has reconsidered.” Michael saw the way her shoulders slumped when he said it, how she turned her face even further away, and it finally drove home the fact that there was some long-overdue damage control to be done here, too. He reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, tracing the line of her jaw with a fingertip. “I mean it, Fi. I couldn’t do this without you.”

“We’ll see.”

She stood up and left the room without a backwards glance and Michael heard Lily’s door open and close. He sighed.  _ You brought that on yourself.  _

 

_ ~*~*~*~ _


	2. Monday, June 15th, 2009

Michael was waiting for Sam in the parking lot of an unassuming office building. He still wasn’t thrilled with this idea, but he knew Sam’s intentions were good and that he had Lily’s best interest at heart. Sam had managed to get a half-hour in Brenda’s schedule and Michael had asked him to come along, knowing full well that Sam intended to anyway.  _ Anything for that little girl, Mike. You know that,  _ had been his reply. Lily’s secret stash of drawings was in a folder on the passenger seat next to Michael, and he was hoping that Fiona and his mother would keep her occupied enough that she wouldn’t notice they were missing. He sighed and drew a hand down his face.  _ It’s for Lily, it’s for Lily, it’s for Lily, _ he thought, until he saw Sam pull into the lot.

They met at the foot of the walkway to the double doors of the building.

“Mornin’, Mikey.”

“Sam.”

“Ready?”

Michael gave him a look.

“Yeah, me too. Come on.”

Sam led the way through the lobby, up a flight of stairs, and down a hall to a door with several nameplates on it, one of them reading  _ Dr. Brenda Haig, Psy. D _ . They stopped and looked at each other, and Sam cocked an eyebrow. Michael gave him a nod.

Inside was a waiting room containing a few chairs, a small coffee table with magazines and a flower arrangement, and, at the far wall, a desk with accompanying receptionist.

“Good morning!” the receptionist said cheerfully. “Mr. Axe and Mr. Westen?”

“Yes,” they replied in unison. 

“Dr. Haig is expecting you. Please go on in.” The receptionist gestured to a door a few feet away from her desk.

Sam knocked, and there was a “Come in!” from inside the office.

“Brenda?” Sam poked his head around the door.

“Hi, Sam. This must be Mr. Westen?”

“Dr. Haig,” Michael extended a hand as he followed Sam into the office.

Brenda shook the proffered hand and then motioned to the furniture. “Have a seat.” 

Michael and Sam both regarded the sofa with distaste, and out of the corner of his eye Michael caught Brenda fail to hide a smile. 

She rolled her desk chair towards them and sat in it, leaving the armchair free for one of them so they didn’t both have to sit on the couch. “So I’m led to understand that there are some concerns about your daughter, Mr. Westen. Who is somehow Sam’s niece. The one I don’t remember him having.”

“It’s…complicated,” Michael said, looking sidelong at Sam.

“Well, I don’t have another appointment until eleven, so why don’t the two of you start at the beginning and we’ll see if we can make it less complicated.” Neither Sam nor Michael made an attempt to start the story, so Brenda prompted, “Okay, let’s start with something easy. What’s her name? How old is she?”

“Lily. She’s four. Well, she’ll be five in a couple of weeks.”

“Oh, how fun! How’s the party planning coming along?”

Sam said, “I’m not sure she even knows, to be honest. Has she said anything to you, Mike?”

“No.”

“And why do you think that is?” Brenda asked.

“I kind of doubt it was something to be celebrated before.” Sam answered.

“Wait, is this a religious thing? Do you not celebrate birthdays? Because that’s important for me to know.”

“No, no,” Michael said. “It’s not—She’s—”

“She’s sort of adopted,” Sam said. “Mike and Fi found—”

“ _ Sam, _ ” Michael said, pained.

“Look, it’s all or nothing, brother. This isn’t going to help Lily if Brenda doesn’t know the whole story.”

Brenda looked back and forth between the two of them, understandably confused.

Michael looked at Sam.  _ He’s never steered you wrong when it mattered, _ he thought. “Okay.”

“Do you want to tell it, or should I?”

Michael shifted in the armchair to face Brenda. “Fi and I—”

“Sorry, excuse me,” Brenda interrupted, “but who’s Fi?”

“Fi is short for Fiona,” Michael explained. “And she’s…well, she’s Lily’s mother on paper.”

Brenda made a note. “And in life?”

Michael thought for a minute. He and Fiona weren’t exactly one thing or another right now, but one thing was certain. “The same as on paper.”

Brenda looked at Sam, who confirmed Michael’s statement. “That’s about right. Mike and Fi have known each other for years. She works with us. And she loves that little girl.”

Brenda nodded. “Okay. Please continue.”

“Fi and I found Lily. She was alone in a mangrove swamp by the shore, beat to hell.” He swallowed—the memory was still vivid and it always made Michael’s chest feel tight. “She was terrified. Fi managed to convince her to come out from where she was hiding and we took her home. It turned out her parents were the drug dealer and his girlfriend involved in that murder/suicide about a month and a half ago.”

“I remember hearing about that. I thought the child was assumed to have been killed, too.”

“No, the cops just gave her up for dead. She was hiding in the hole in the wall of the house her parents used to stash the drugs the whole time. When the police stopped coming around, she left and ended up down by the water.”

“So you took her with you. May I ask why you didn’t take her to the authorities?”

Michael looked at Sam for help.

“You know the Bates case a couple weeks ago? Guns, drugs, human trafficking?”

“Yes, it was in the papers.”

“We kind of blew that open.”

“Excuse me?”

Sam looked back at Michael, and Michael gave him the  _ go ahead _ nod. 

“I know you know my military history—back in the day, Mike and I ran ops together. The two of us and Fi still do something similar. A little bounty hunting, private investigating, security, that kind of stuff.”

Brenda cocked an eyebrow. “Sounds a bit vigilante-ish.”

“We prefer the term ‘helpful’. Look, we stick to the law as much as we can, it’s just that sometimes to get them to do their jobs you have to get a little…creative.”

Michael thumped his head into his hands.

“Mike, relax. She’s got her own subversive streak.” Sam winked at Brenda.

“I may have gotten a little creative on occasion in order to get things going in the right direction, I’ll admit.” Brenda smirked. “All in the name of a good cause, right?”

Michael’s head snapped back up. “Lily’s safety is priority number one.”

“Believe me, Mr. Westen, you’ve made that abundantly clear. You could have handed Lily off and walked away from the whole thing, but you all chose to not only personally uproot some unconscionable activities but also to welcome a little girl who had been wounded by them into your family. I can respect that. And like Sam said, I don’t exactly live in a glass house so you’re not going to be dodging any stones from me.”

Michael and Brenda shared a look for a moment and Michael, deciding he was satisfied with her honesty, relaxed and leaned back into a more comfortable and less confrontational position.

“So, back to Lily. You found her, you took her home. Then what?”

Sam picked the story back up. “You should have seen her, Bren. She was…she was in really, really bad shape, and scared as hell. She didn’t talk for almost the whole first week she was with us. Freaked out over just about everything. Sending her into some kind of care facility or whatever would probably have killed her. Mike and Fi kept her at Mike’s and took care of her while we did a little research. We discovered that Lily’s biological parents didn’t deal their wares directly—they supplied drugs to Bates. We investigated a little more into him and his organization, figured out how to get him caught in a very compromising situation, and then sort of helped the cops and the feds along with catching up to him. Lily was with us the whole time, and I did a records deep-dive—called everyone I could think of who might be able to help—but there wasn’t a single relation I could find who wasn’t dead or in prison or a known offender, and we weren’t about to hand her off to anyone we didn’t trust implicitly. By the time the job was done Lily trusted us, and we all got more than a little attached, so I did some document adjusting and now on paper she’s been Mike and Fi’s since she was born.” 

Brenda was scribbling madly, trying to keep up. She finished a note and looked up again. “Okay. Unorthodox, I’ll admit, but I can’t fault your reasoning. Now, who, exactly, are ‘we all’?”

“Me, Fi, Sam, and my mother,” Michael answered.

“And you’re all taking part in caring for Lily?”

“That seems to be how it’s going, yes.”

Brenda turned to Sam.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from that kid.”

“And she’s living...?”

“At my mother’s,” Michael said. “It’s the best place, considering our line of work.”

Brenda nodded and consulted her notes. “So, in a nutshell, Lily came from a home where she was physically abused by her parents and with that comes the inherent emotional trauma. Add to that the death of said parents in a violent fashion and several days thereafter of being scared and alone, followed by being thrust into a completely foreign living situation with new, albeit well-intentioned people…well it’s a lot for anyone to deal with, let alone a child of four. You’ve done the right thing in coming to see me. Not to disparage any progress you’ve made with her already, and with the utmost respect, this is going to need everything you can give her and a healthy dose of professional help as well. Whether that’s ultimately with me or someone else, it needs to happen. And you can’t expect results overnight.”

Both Michael and Sam nodded.

“So, how is all of this manifesting itself?” she asked, picking up her pen again.

“Night terrors,” said Michael.

“She still dives for cover if something spooks her,” Sam added.

“Sometimes she just sort of withdraws into herself.”

“She doesn’t like to ask for things.”

Michael handed the folder of Lily’s drawings to Brenda. “And last night we found these.”

Brenda looked through the drawings one by one, studying each of them closely. When she was finished she stacked them neatly and put them back into the folder, passing it back to Michael. “If you’re willing, I’d like to do a consultation. Can you bring Lily in on Wednesday? I think I have one or two openings.”

“Anything on the calendar, Mike?”

Michael sighed. “No.”

“Well, see my receptionist on your way out and she’ll set up a time. Before I let you go, is there anything else I should know?”

“There is one thing that kind of baffles me,” Sam said.

“What’s that?”

He looked at Michael. “I know you’ve noticed this. She’s always called me Uncle Sam, and she transitioned to calling Maddie ‘Gramma’ pretty much instantly, but she doesn’t call you or Fi anything any more.”

“I noticed,” Michael said.  _ Trust me, I noticed. It’s like she’s afraid of the words ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. I don’t really blame her. _

“I take it she was calling you by your first names before?” Brenda asked.

“She was. But Sam’s right, she’s stopped calling us anything.”

“Well, that’s definitely something to explore.” Brenda checked her watch. “I hate to seem like I’m rushing you, but I have another appointment. Please talk to Rebecca on your way out, and I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Michael picked up the folder and started for the door. “Thank you, Dr. Haig.”

“Thanks, Brenda.”

“She’s lucky to have all of you. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

Michael and Sam set an appointment and left. They exited the building in silence, but as they reached the edge of the parking lot Michael turned to Sam. “This is going to be messy.”

“It needs to happen or she’s going to carry it her whole life and god knows how that’s going to affect her down the line.”

Michael nodded. “I know. I don’t like it, but I know.”

“She looks to you for everything, Mike. You’ve got to set aside your own feelings on this and make sure she knows you support her. And we’re all in this together—that means supporting each other as much as it means supporting Lily. I know that goes against everything you and I were trained to be, but we don’t have a choice.”

“We did. I’m not sure I made the right one.” He regretted saying it as soon as it left his lips.

Sam stared him down. “Really? It gets a little uncomfortable and you’re going to fall back on the old ‘everyone’s better off without me’ argument?”

“Sam—”

“No, Mike. You  _ will _ do this. Because if you don’t, I will, and I’ll have the added work of dealing with the aftermath of you giving up on her. But I’ll fucking do it, Mike, because this is not a problem you can solve by running from it like you tried to in Ireland.”

Michael stared at Sam, speechless.

“Yeah, I went there. I love you like family, but you’ve done some stupid shit in the name of ‘protecting’ the people who love you, and I can’t watch it happen any more. To them  _ or _ to you.”

Michael knew if he didn’t get out of there soon he was going to do something he’d regret, so he turned on his heel and headed for the Charger.

 

~~~

 

“Where’s Michael?” Madeline asked as Sam walked through the door alone.

“No idea.” He marched to the fridge and grabbed a beer before returning to the living room and sitting down heavily in an armchair.

“What happened?”

“He’s a stubborn jackass.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Madeline drawled as she flicked the ash off the end of her cigarette. “Let me guess. He’s uncomfortable dealing with Lily’s issues because he’s never dealt with his own, and he’s trying to run away from it in the name of protecting her.”

“Bingo.” Sam slammed back half the beer in one go. “And I may have called him on the carpet about it.”

“Good,” Madeline said.

“Good? I just ripped my best friend a new one about his inability to stick it out when people needed his support when I was supposed to be supporting  _ him _ .”

“He needed to hear it.”

“Mad, I lost it. I brought up Ireland.”

“Good.”

“Will you stop saying ‘good’?!”

“No, I won’t. He needs to get his life together. He and Fiona need to figure themselves out, and he needs to come to terms with the fact that his  _ daughter _ needs him more than anyone because he’s been through a lot of the same shit she has. He made the bed, he can lie in it.”

Sam sighed. “Where is Fi, anyway?”

“Out back with Lily popping soda cans off the fence with slingshots. I wish she’d take a pot-shot at that damn squirrel that keeps digging up my begonias, but I think that might upset the little one.”

Sam had to laugh. “That kid’s going to be a force to be reckoned with, I’ll tell you.” He finished his beer and stood up. “I’d better get out of here. Mike’s not going to want to see me for a while, and there’s no telling when he’ll roll up.”

“Don’t you dare leave without kissing that baby.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He gave Madeline’s shoulder a squeeze as he passed her on his way to the back door which she returned with one to his forearm. When he got outside he found Lily between Fiona and the fence, concentrating on a mirror Fiona was holding for her and aiming behind herself. When Lily loosed the stone from her slingshot it sailed just over the top of the cola can at which she had presumably been aiming.

“That one went high, but it was really close. Adjust it down just a tiny bit and I think you’ll get it.”

“Trick shots already, Fi?” Sam smiled.

“Why not?”

“No reason, no reason.” He winked at Lily. “Try it again, squirt.”

Lily took a breath and furrowed her little brows in concentration. She took her time aiming, and when she released on the outbreath it was followed immediately by a  _ PLINK _ as the can fell. “I got it?!”

“You got it, Lily-girl!” Fiona cheered just before she was toppled onto the lawn in a show of exuberance from Lily. “Ooph. A little warning next time, please,” she said, retaliating by giving Lily a full-strength squish.

Lily squeaked out a giggle and a “Sorry!” before Fiona released her hold, and then the little girl sprang up and darted over to Sam.

He picked her up. “That was pretty impressive!”

Lily frowned. “I missed the first  _ six times _ .”

“That’s okay, that’s how you learn. The important thing is not to give up.”

“Mmh,” Lily hummed, looking behind him towards the house.

“Daddy’s still out. He’ll be back later.”

“‘Kay. Are you staying?”

“No, I have some stuff to do. I’ll see you later, though, okay?”

“Yeah.” Lily hugged him.

Fiona asked, “Any timeline on Michael?”

“No idea.” When she raised an eyebrow Sam just shook his head. “I’d better get going.” He gave Lily a kiss and put her down. “See you two later, yeah?”

“Bye, Sam.”

“Bye, Uncle Sam!”

 

~~~

 

Michael pulled up in front of the house and cut the engine, but didn’t get out of the car. He’d been driving aimlessly for three hours since he’d left Brenda’s office, rolling Sam’s words around in his mind. The anger had taken a solid hour to ease, but once it had it was gone for good. Sam was right, much as Michael hated to admit it. 

_ You do have a track record of getting out of Dodge when shit gets serious. Hell, you made a career out of it. You ran out on Fi and she still holds that against you, deep down. _

He hadn’t meant it when he said he thought that he had made the wrong choice with Lily—he just hadn’t been prepared to be so utterly terrified of everything it entailed. Sam’s warning flitted through his head again.

_...if you don’t, I will, and I’ll have the added work of dealing with the aftermath of you giving up on her. _

He sighed.  _ You don’t give up. You finish the job.  _ Grabbing the folder of Lily’s drawings from the passenger seat, he headed inside. When he got in the door and didn’t immediately see anyone he went to the couch and knelt down, putting the pile of drawings back where they had come from. When he stood up and turned around, Lily was staring at him from next to the dining table, eyes wide and scared.

“Lily—”

She was down the hall before he finished getting her name out. He followed, looking into her room, then Nate’s room, then his mother’s. Madeline was asleep—she and Lily must have been napping together and Lily had heard him come in. 

He went back to his daughter’s room. “Lily?”

No response. He looked in the corners and the closet before he noticed that the bedskirt was folded up on itself in one corner, and he got down on his hands and knees to look underneath. 

Lily had pushed herself as far back into the corner where the bed met the wall as she could. When Michael’s face came into view she slammed her eyes shut and covered her face with her stuffed hippo.

“Hey, Lily-girl,” he said softly. “Will you come out so we can talk about it?”

Lily didn’t move.

“You don’t have to come out right now if you don’t want, but I’m staying here until you do.” He settled onto his stomach, resting his head on his folded arms.

“Don’t,” Lily said. It came out muffled.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t stay. Leave me ‘lone!”

Michael flinched.  _ Don’t give up on her. _ “Nope. Not gonna happen, Lily-girl. I’ll stay here all night if I have to.”

“ _ Please. _ Go ‘way.”

“Not even if you ask nicely.” 

Lily lapsed into silence, and she stayed that way for so long that Michael thought he might actually have to make good on his threat to camp out for the night. Then, finally, it came.

“You weren’t s’posed to see.”

“I kind of figured that, since they were under the couch. But I did see them, and I can’t help you fix it if you don’t talk to me, Lily-girl.”

“No!” Lily shook her head violently. “They’re bad. They’re scary. I thought if I hid ‘em they’d go away but it didn’t work.”

“Well, since that didn’t work I guess we need to try something else. You want to come out and help me think of something?”

Lily peeked around her hippo’s head. “Are you mad?”

_ If your parents weren’t already dead, I’d kill ‘em. _ “No, Lily-girl, I’m not mad.”

A little more of her face came into view. “Promise?”

“I promise.” He reached a hand toward her.

Lily pushed herself forward and took it, letting him help tug her out from under the bed. 

Michael rolled onto his back and pulled her up onto his chest once she was clear, brushing the dust and fluff off of her. “You turned into a dust bunny,” he said, before noticing and carefully picking a piece of glitter out of her eyebrow, showing it to her when it stuck to his thumb. “A sparkly one.” He was rewarded with her crooked little grin, and he rested his right hand behind his head and rubbed Lily’s back with his left. “Will you tell me about the pictures?”

“They’re stuck in my head.”

“Are they pictures of your dreams or of things that really happened?”

“Both.”

There was that all-too-familiar ache in Michael’s chest again. “Did drawing them make you feel better?”

“Kinda. Not all the way. Some made it worse.”

“Which ones?”

“The dream ones.”

“If we go out and look at them will you show me which ones are the dream ones and which ones are the real ones?”

Lily thought for a moment, then looked up into his eyes. “‘Kay.”

“Atta girl,” Michael said, and stood up with her in his arms, heading for the living room.

Madeline had been listening in from down the hall and reached for her phone. “Sam? You got through to him.”

 

~*~*~*~


	3. Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Fiona and Lily were in the garage. The table in front of them had six buckets on it, each containing a lump of plastic explosive. Earlier that morning they had dyed each of the lumps a different color and now, stacked beside the table, there were two plastic bins filled with individually wrapped bricks—all comprised of a layer of each color—ready to go back to the loft for storage. Fiona had Lily in a pair of nitrile gloves with the fingers tied off and trimmed down to accommodate her four-year-old fingers and rubber bands around her forearms to keep them from sliding off. A set of neon-orange-framed kids swimming goggles and one of Michael’s old t-shirts to keep the chemicals out of her eyes and off of her clothes completed the ensemble, and it made the child look like a miniature mad scientist. Fiona found it too adorable for words.

The clock on the garage wall showed four o’clock. Fiona said, “We’d better stop and clean up, Lily-girl.”

“Aaawwww!”

“I know, but Daddy’s not crazy about you playing with this stuff and he’ll probably be back soon.”

“‘Kay. Can we do it again tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

“Maybe Uncle Sam can come help.”

“Maybe. Just remember, whatever you do,  _ don’t _ tell Daddy, okay?”

“Don’t tell Daddy what?” Michael asked as he rounded the doorway into the garage.

Lily slid behind Fiona, who looked at Michael and said, “We weren’t expecting you for a while.”

Michael’s eyes were riveted to the table. “Colored C4?”

Fiona sighed, bracing herself for a lecture. “Sometimes it’s just more fun to blow things up in Technicolor.”

He slumped against the doorframe and drew a hand down his face, but when he looked up he was grinning. “I give up. You realize that every time we rig something to blow now, we’re going to have to make a decision on color so our C4 doesn’t clash with the carpet?”

“Oh, please.” Fiona smiled, relieved. “It’s no fun if you only use one color at a time.”

A rainbow brick appeared on the tabletop from behind Fiona, pushed by a little blue-gloved hand.

“That’s—” Michael laughed. “That’s amazing. You two are something else, you know that?”

“It wasn’t  _ my _ idea,” Fiona said, and she moved a bit to one side, pulling Lily around in front of her.

Michael gave a dramatic laugh-turned-cough when he saw Lily’s protective gear. “No?”

“Nope. Tell Daddy what you said before we put the colors in.”

“I said maybe nice colors would make the bad guys want to be nicer,” Lily said, her little voice highlighting her innocent logic.

Fiona cocked an eyebrow at Michael. “Made sense to me.”

“Makes sense to me, too. I have a question, though.” 

“What?” Lily asked.

“Where’s the glitter?”

Lily’s jaw dropped and she looked at Fiona with a face that said  _ why didn’t we think of that _ ?

“I know! I didn’t think of it, either,” Fiona said. “Next time.”

“‘Kay.”

Michael walked into the garage proper and looked down at Lily. “Arms up, please.” Lily did as she was told and he knelt down to help her out of the gloves and goggles and giant t-shirt. “It’s just you and Gramma tonight, Lily-girl. Mama and I are going out.” He looked at Fiona. “Okay, Fi?”

“Did we get a job?” she asked.

“No.”

“Oh.” Fiona wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or suspicious. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Michael gave Lily a kiss and pointed her towards the house. “I’ll help Mama clean up. Go see what Gramma’s doing.”

“‘Kay.” 

He watched until Lily was inside, and then turned back to Fiona who was studying him carefully. “What’s up?”

“I’m trying to figure out what the catch is.” She knew it was a little unfair, but she also knew that this was Michael.

“No catch. Just us.”

“Hmm,” Fiona murmured as she started sorting out the materials on the table.

 

~~~

 

A little over an hour later, Michael and Fiona were sitting at an outside table at Carlito’s. Michael had suggested several other options, all reasonably swanky, but surprisingly Fiona hadn’t wanted to bother with changing and suggested their usual hangout instead. She hadn’t said much since they’d left Madeline’s, and now she was picking disinterestedly at her salad.

“Fi.”

She flicked a spinach leaf back towards the middle of her plate. “Hmm?”

He waited to see if she’d look up.

She didn’t.

“Hey.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “What?”

“You’re awful quiet.”

“Not much to say.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “There just isn’t.”

“I think there is. I think there’s a lot of things you want to say, you’re just not saying them,” he said, employing the same tactic he had with Lily the night before. “And I’m just going to keep asking you until you tell me.”

Fiona raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never gone out of your way to find out what I’m thinking before. At least not beyond anything involving work—and most of the time not even then.”

_ I know. And I’m a jackass _ , he thought, but what he said was, “I know. And I should have.” 

She just stared at him. 

“Talk to me. There’s a lot going on, and it involves both of us.”

“It involves the three of us.”

“You’re right, it does. But that’s only part of it. You don’t mean any less to me just because we’ve got Lily now.”   


“Well, I’m acutely aware of where  _ I _ fall on your list of priorities. Where does she figure, exactly?”

Michael’s gut twisted. He knew it was his fault that Fiona had always felt like she was less-than-important in his life—hell, he’d spent so many years before now making  _ sure  _ she felt that way to try to keep her safe, not that it had worked all that well—but the lasting effect of that now seemed to be extending to Lily, and how significant he felt her to be. 

“Family comes first, Fi.” He expected an eye roll, and he got one. “I know it hasn’t always been that way with me, but people can change.”

“As is convenient.”

He let out a weary breath. This was a familiar argument, one he hoped that someday soon he could put an end to once and for all. “I know you’re still angry at me for disappearing. I know you’re angry at me for a lot of things. You have every right to be. I haven’t been the best…”  _ The best what? Boyfriend? Lover? Friend? All of those things. _ “Well, I just haven’t been the best. I didn’t ask you if you would sign your name next to mine when we re-did Lily’s birth certificate just because I thought she needed a mother. I asked you because there’s no one else in the world I’d want to raise a child with.  _ With _ , Fi. As a family. Not ‘you and Lily’ and ‘me and Lily’. The three of us. Together.”

“ _ You _ didn’t actually ask me. You made Lily do it.”

She was right. 

Once Lily had—as Michael had figured she would—decided she wanted to stay with them, he’d carried her to the back door and shouted towards the garage,  _ You three, get in here—and bring a pen! _

Sam made a beeline for the house then, folder and pen in hand, Madeline and Fiona following close behind. Michael swiped the pen and folder from Sam with his free hand and went to the dining table, where he set Lily on his lap and pulled out the adjusted birth certificate Sam had drawn up. Madeline sat at the chair across from him, Sam next to her, leaving the seat next to Michael as the only option for Fiona. 

Flicking the top off the pen with his thumb, Michael quickly filled in the appropriate boxes on the form so he couldn’t overthink the situation, signing and setting the pen down, then looking at Lily.  _ That’s it, Lily-girl. You’re stuck with me. _

Lily threw her arms around his neck and hugged him as hard as she could.

While he attempted to ease the pressure Lily’s shoulder was applying to his trachea he had been able to see Fiona out of the corner of his eye, and all the feelings he had harbored—treasured, even—about her for years suddenly shot out of the back of his mind where he kept those secret things. Michael looked at the form on the table. There was his name in black and white, and there was Lily’s, but the other section was still blank and it felt as empty as it looked. There was something forming there, though. Something taking on a familiar shape. Something that carried a familiar warmth. Suddenly the wash of emotions morphed into ardent recollections from his and Fiona’s history and everything seemed to somehow double in intensity, all of the thoughts and feelings vying for Michael’s attention, trampling each other in an attempt to be the memory that made his next decision final. In that moment, he had known what he wanted the future to look like. 

Leaning down, he whispered in Lily’s ear so that only she would hear,  _ Did you see the other spaces on the paper? _

Lily nodded against his shoulder.

_ What do you think about asking Fi to put her name in there? _ Lily pulled away and looked at him, obviously thrilled by the suggestion, and he said,  _ Go for it, Lily-girl. _

She slid down from his lap and picked up the pen before turning to Fiona, holding it out to her and simply saying,  _ Please? _

Fiona looked at her for a second, equal parts surprised and touched, before managing to ask,  _ Is that what you want, Lily-girl? _

Lily nodded, and Fiona took the pen from her hand and pulled the little girl up into the chair with her.

Michael slid the form over and Fiona filled out the other half. Once she put the pen down, she and Lily looked at each other and grinned, and Fiona kissed the little girl’s nose before pulling her close. Michael watched the two of them hold each other, wanting to join them but not daring to break the spell—at least, not until Lily turned her head and reached for him with one arm. Fiona felt Lily reach, and she and Michael stood up so that he could get his arms around both of them.

They stayed that way until Madeline had broken the moment.  _ All right, I can’t take it anymore. Give me my grandbaby! _ Michael and Fiona separated just enough to allow Madeline to take Lily, and once she had her, she asked,  _ Okay, Miss Lily, who am I? _

Lily looked confused for a second, but then caught on.  _ Gramma? _

_ That’s right. Who am I going to be at bedtime? _

_ Gramma. _

_ Good. Who am I going to be in two weeks? _

Lily started to giggle.  _ Gramma. _

_ Who am I going to be when you’re a hundred years old? _

_ Gramma! _

While Lily and Madeline had their moment, Michael had looked down to find Fiona with the look on her face that said  _ I should be happy right now, but I’m worried this is all going to go horribly wrong. _

He whispered,  _ Thanks, Fi, _ and she had pulled together a smile that would have been convincing to anyone else. He started to say something to her, to add his own request for her to complete their little family to Lily’s, but everything had descended into the most gleeful sort of madness then and the question had been forgotten. 

Until now.

Pulling himself back to the present, Michael looked at Fiona sitting across from him. “I thought it might be better coming from Lily. I thought she needed that. In the moment, I thought  _ you  _ needed that. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it should have been me asking you. So I’m asking you now, Fi. Please. Be ours.”

“I wish I could convince myself that you actually mean all of that, and that we won’t wake up one morning and find you gone without a trace, because that would break Lily’s heart.”

Michael dropped his head, resting it in his hands for a brief moment before looking back up at Fiona. She was staring him down, determined to hold onto the anger so that the hurt couldn’t take over, but Michael knew. He’d have known even if her eyes hadn’t betrayed her, welling up in spite of their steeliness—even without the infinitesimal quiver at the corner of her mouth.  _ You did that, _ he thought.  _ You need to make it right. For her  _ and _ for Lily. _ He focused on Fiona’s gaze, returning its intensity, hoping his eyes would fill in the spaces his next words couldn’t. “No. I did that once and broke a heart that meant more to me than I thought anything ever could. And I may never be able to fix that, but I’m not going to quit trying.”

Fiona let out a shaky breath and returned her gaze to her plate.

“Fiona.” Her full name. It most often left his lips out of anger or passion or relief, but he somehow defaulted to it in moments like this, when he knew she was trying to shut him out and he  _ needed  _ to get through. There was a minute stutter in her breathing—likely imperceptible to anyone else, but Michael knew that whatever he said next would stick.

Her eyes stayed fixed on a carrot and she whispered, “What?”

“I’m not going to quit trying.”

She just nodded.

 

~*~*~*~


	4. Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Sam let himself into Madeline’s house the next morning and found her and Michael leaning against the kitchen counter drinking coffee. Madeline pulled over another mug and filled it, sliding it to him when he crossed the room.

“Thanks, Maddie.”

Michael spun his mug on the tile. “Sam.”

“Mike.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“You know I’d do anything for that kid, brother.”

“I know. And I appreciate it.”

Sam knew that there were three words that didn’t figure in Michael’s vocabulary—quit, love, and sorry—but that also meant that he knew a Michael Westen apology when he heard one. “I know,” he said. “Did you tell her?”

“Not yet. I didn’t want her to have too much time to get worked up over it.”

“Makes sense.” Sam looked around. “Is she up?”

“No,” Michael said. “Fi went in with her about half an hour ago.”

“What time is the appointment?”

“Nine.”

Sam checked his watch. “We can give them a while longer.”

The three of them stayed at the counter with their coffee, sipping in silence. Madeline emptied the pot refilling their mugs and started another.

“Anybody want breakfast?” she asked.

“No thanks, Ma.”

“Not me, Mad, thanks.”

Madeline pushed the button on the coffee maker and turned around, crossing her arms and looking at both of them. “So are we all going today, or what?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Michael said. “I think that might put too much pressure on Lily.”

“Okay, then who _is_ going with her?” Madeline asked.

Michael looked at the countertop. “I am.”

“You sure?” Sam asked.

“Yup.” He took a swallow of coffee without shifting his gaze.

“All right, then. Tell you what—I’ll break the news, since I’m the one who knows Brenda anyway.”

Michael closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Thanks, Sam.”

“You got it, brother. Maddie, gimme a mug for Fi, huh?”

Madeline poured another cup and handed it to Sam, giving him a grateful look as he took it from her hands. Sam gave her a wink and started down the hall.

“Sam.”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Go gently. I had to talk her out from under the bed the other night.”

“Got it.” He resumed his trek towards Lily’s room, bumping the door open with an elbow when he got there. Fiona’s eyes opened and he lifted a mug in her direction before putting it on top of the dresser. “Coffee.”

“Thanks.”

Sam set his mug down on the nightstand as he sat on the edge of the bed, and he and Fiona watched Lily sleep for a moment together.

“I’m breaking the news and Mike’s going with her,” Sam said quietly.

“Okay.” Fiona leaned over, smoothing some of Lily’s hair back from her face. “Uncle Sam’s here, Lily-girl. Time to get up.”

Lily sighed and shifted a little, but didn’t wake up.

Fiona smiled. “Come on, you.” She tapped Lily’s nose with her index finger until the child’s eyes fluttered open.

“Huh?”

“Mornin’ squirt,” Sam said.

Lily rubbed her eyes. “Hi.”

“I’m taking over so Mama can have her coffee.”

“‘Kay.” Lily leaned into Fiona and kissed what she could reach, which happened to be Fiona’s elbow. “Hi.”

Fiona returned the kiss with one to Lily’s cheek. “Hi. See you in a bit.”

“‘Kay.”

Fiona grabbed her mug and left the room as Sam pulled Lily upright and into his lap, leaning against the wall at the head of the bed. “What are we wearing today, huh?”

“Is it hot outside?”

“Is the sky blue?” Lily wrinkled her nose at him and he chuckled. “We’ll find something in a minute. I’ve got something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

“Do you remember the lady I was talking to on the beach the other day?”

“Yeah.”

“She has a special job. She helps people like me and your mama and daddy do, but she does it in a different way. When people are sad or something bad happens to them, they go and talk to her and she helps them feel better that way. Make sense?”

“I guess.”

“Well, we think it would be a good idea for you to go talk to her and see if she can help you with your bad dreams, and make you feel better about all the scary stuff that happened before you were ours. What do you think about that?” He felt Lily immediately stiffen up and start to pull away from him, so he held her a little tighter. “Hey, there’s nothing to be scared of, squirt. Daddy’s going with you—he’ll be there the whole time.”

Sam moved a hand to cradle her head and brought it to rest against his chest, over his heart, hoping its rhythm would calm her. “Come on, Lily, you know we wouldn’t do anything we thought was going to hurt you. I think you’ll like her, she’s really nice. Daddy and I saw her the other day and she wants to help you. Will you try for us, at least? Just once?” Lily had gone still which usually meant she was thinking, so Sam waited a minute. When she didn’t say anything, he kissed the top of her head and started rocking gently side to side. “Trust us, baby. We love you.” He waited a few more minutes, continuing the rocking motion.

Finally, that little voice said, “Uncle Sam?”

“Hmm?”

Lily sniffed. “I’ll try.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Uncle Sam?”

“Yeah?”

There was a pause, and then Lily whispered, “Love you.”

 _Holy shit. That’s a first._ “Love you back, squirt.” Sam pressed another kiss into her hair. “Let’s get you ready, huh?”

 

~~~

 

Michael carried Lily up from the car to Brenda’s office partly because it made him feel better because they were both nervy, and partly because he didn’t want to take a chance on her bolting off. When they got to the door he looked down at her and said, “I’m not going anywhere, Lily-girl. Okay?”

She rested her head on his shoulder and whispered, “‘Kay.”

“Atta girl.” He opened the door and walked through.

“Hello, Mr. Westen,” Rebecca the receptionist said from her desk.

“Hi.”

“This must be Lily.”

Michael could feel Lily trying very hard to be invisible by burrowing her face into his shirt. “Yes.”

Rebecca smiled sympathetically. “Dr. Haig is ready for you, go on in.”

“Thank you.” Michael took Lily to the door to the left of the desk and knocked.

“Come in!”

Once more he looked down at Lily, who peeked up at him from his shoulder. “You’ve got this. And I’ve got you. Okay?” She nodded, and he opened the door, closing it behind them as they entered the inner office.

Brenda smiled and got up from behind her desk. “Mr. Westen, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Dr. Haig.”

“And this must be Lily.”

Lily chanced a glance over at Brenda and quietly said, “Hi,” before tucking her face back into the spot between Michael’s neck and shoulder.

“Hi,” Brenda said back. “Well, why don’t you two make yourselves comfortable, hmm?”

Michael sat on the sofa with Lily. He had no idea what to expect with this appointment, so when Brenda joined them, sitting on the floor and setting out a basket of crayons and some paper in front of her, he was intrigued.

He wasn’t the only one. Lily had been watching things unfold with one eye—the other was still glued to Michael’s shirt—but the drawing supplies caught her attention and she sat up a little.

“Do you want to come down here and color with me, Lily?” Brenda asked.

Lily tightened her hold on her father.

“You don’t have to, but your dad said you really liked drawing so I thought this might be fun.”

Lily looked up at Michael and he said, “Go ahead if you want, Lily-girl. I’ll be here.”

She considered for a second, then slid down from his lap to the floor, keeping her back attached to his legs. Brenda slid some paper over to her and moved the crayon basket so they could both reach. They drew in silence for about five minutes, Brenda surreptitiously watching Lily, waiting for her to relax, and Michael watching both of them, catching on to what Brenda was doing.

When Brenda seemed satisfied with Lily’s state of ease, she asked, “What are you drawing?”

“Hippo,” Lily answered without looking up.

“Can I see?” Lily turned the paper towards Brenda. “Is she wearing a tutu?”

“Uh-huh. Like my hippo.”

“Your hippo?” Brenda looked at Michael. “Imaginary, or stuffed?”

“Stuffed,” he clarified.

“Aha. Does your hippo have a name?”

“No. But I draw her a lot. An’ I made her out of Formerol once.”

“What’s Formerol?”

Michael tensed a little. He knew Sam trusted Brenda to be discreet about their professional activities with anyone outside their inner circle, but he was still a little skeptical.

“It’s clay that works like glue. It’s good if you can’t…can’t…” She looked at Michael. “What’s it called?”

“Soldering. When you can’t solder something together.”

“Yeah. That.” She looked at Brenda. “He has to build stuff sometimes for jobs.”

“Oh.”

Lily put her drawing aside and reached for another piece of paper.

“Lily?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you draw something for me now?”

“What?”

“How about a picture of your family. You and your parents and whoever else there is.”

Lily looked at her, confused. “Which?”

“Which what?”

“These,” she pointed at Michael, “or the other ones?”

“Oh, I see what you mean. Well, you choose.”

“Don’t want to draw the other ones,” Lily whispered, pushing herself back into Michael’s legs and pulling her knees up to her chest.

“That’s okay, why don’t you draw these ones, then?” Brenda said comfortingly, using Lily’s own terms. “I want to see what your family looks like.” She pushed the crayon basket a bit closer to the little girl.

Lily craned her neck around and looked at Michael, who gave her a wink. Apparently that was all the encouragement she needed to make her reach for the basket and start a new picture.

As the child drew, Brenda asked Michael, “So remind me, Mr. Westen, it’s Lily and you and who else?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

Michael figured out where she was going. “Well, there’s us, and Lily’s mom, Fiona, and Uncle Sam—you know him already—”

“And Gramma,” Lily added, still absorbed in her drawing.

“And Gramma, yes. My mom, Maddie.”

“Anybody else?”

“I have a brother, but he hasn’t been around in a while.” Brenda looked concerned, so Michael explained. “He lives in Las Vegas. Lily hasn’t met him yet.”

“Wait, what’s Barry?” Lily asked, rummaging in the basket for a blue crayon.

Michael chuckled. “Barry’s just a friend, Lily-girl.”

“He just does the money stuff?”

“He just does the money stuff.” Michael turned to Brenda. “He’s a sort of…financial advisor. Helps me, Fi, and Sam out sometimes. No relation.”

“And is that everyone?”

“That’s everyone.”

They waited a few more minutes until Lily’s drawing took more of a shape, and then Brenda asked, “Okay, Lily, can you tell me who’s who?”

Lily traded out the blue crayon for a brown one and kept drawing as she spoke. “That’s Uncle Sam,” she said, pointing with her left hand at a figure with a whole mess of grey hair in a bright orange shirt.

“Looks about right,” Brenda said, giving Michael a sidelong grin.

Michael cleared his throat to stifle a laugh. “The hair’s certainly on point.”

It was Brenda’s turn to cough. “Okay, who’s this?” She pointed to the figure next to Sam.

“Gramma. You can tell ‘cause of the big earrings. An’ the cigarette.”

It was a good thing Lily was concentrating on her picture because Michael was having to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

Brenda pointed to the next figure. “And this?”

Lily pointed behind herself at Michael. “You can tell ‘cause of the sunglasses.”

“And this one?”

“Her.”

“Her who?”

Lily continued coloring and simply repeated, “Her.”

“Do you want to know something I’ve noticed?”

“What?”

“You call your grandma ‘Gramma’, you call Sam ‘Uncle Sam’, but you don’t call your mom and dad, ‘Mom and Dad’.”

“Which ones?”

Brenda used Lily’s terms again. “These ones.”

Lily put her crayon down, shrugged, and started picking at the carpet next to her foot.

“Do you know why?” Brenda asked gently.

Lily shrugged again.

“What did you call the other ones?”

Lily’s voice was a whisper. “Didn’t call them anything.”

“Why not?”

Lily flicked her eyes up to meet Brenda’s for a split second and then returned to poking at the carpet. “Made ‘em mad when I did.”

Brenda nodded and looked at Michael out of the corner of her eye. “And are you maybe not calling Michael and Fiona anything because you think they might get mad, too?”

Lily’s breathing quickened and one hand immediately went to her lip, rubbing the scar that ran down her chin—one of the myriad scars she had been given seemingly for no other reason than having the audacity to exist.

Michael slid down onto the floor next to her and pulled her hand away from her face as carefully as he always did when she fell back on that little tick. “Lily-girl, I don’t care if you don’t ever call me anything. I won’t get mad if you do, I won’t get mad if you don’t. And I know Mama would tell you the same thing.”

“Take a breath, Lily,” Brenda said.

Lily did as she was told.

“Okay, now take another.” Brenda repeated this with her a few more times until Lily relaxed. “Good girl. Does that feel a little better?”

Lily nodded and looked up at Michael. “She won’t get mad?”

“Nope.”

“You won’t get mad?”

“Nope.”

Her eyes searched his as she whispered, “Promise?”

Michael leaned down so they were eye-to-eye and ran his thumb down the scar on her chin, repeating the gesture on his own scars. “I promise.”

Lily crawled into his lap.

Brenda looked at the two of them and said, “I think that’s enough for today.”

 

~~~

 

“We can’t _not_ do anything,” Madeline said, crushing out her cigarette and reaching for the pack.

“I wasn’t suggesting we not do anything. I’m just saying that whatever we end up doing, it can’t be overwhelming for her.” Sam tapped a pen on the tabletop. “I’m just not sure that that entails. Fi? You got any ideas?”

Fiona kept examining her hair for split ends. “It’s incredibly unfair. Right now we should be talking about how to scale things back because she’s demanding a _live_ hippo in a tutu for her birthday, but instead we’re sitting here trying to figure out how to keep her from freaking out.”

Madeline flicked some ash into the ashtray. “Any other kid you could just ask, but you know what’s going to happen if we try that.”

“Best case, she says ‘nothing’. Worst case, she dives under the nearest piece of furniture,” Sam said dismally.

They looked glumly at each other. Madeline was about to say something when they heard a car pull up, and the despondency in the room quickly shifted to apprehension. All eyes fell on the front door.

When it opened it revealed Michael carrying Lily, who was sound asleep in his arms. He looked at everyone at the table and made a shushing motion before taking the little girl down the hall and returning a few minutes later, putting Lily’s shoes by the door and sitting down.

“How’d it go, brother?”

“Better than I expected. I think she’ll do okay. It wore her out, though—she was asleep before we left the parking lot.”

“Bless her little heart,” Madeline said softly.

“Did she actually talk?” Sam asked.

“She did, yeah. Not a ton, but it was a start.”

“Wow. I didn’t think she’d say a word straight out of the gate. How’d Brenda do it?”

“Got her drawing.” Michael looked at Fiona. “We figured out why she won’t call us anything any more.”

“Why?

“Apparently she didn’t call the previous set anything because they got mad when she did. She thought we might, too.”

“I’m not sure what makes me feel worse,” Fiona said bitterly. “The fact that those worthless excuses for human beings would hurt her for doing something as natural as calling them Mom and Dad, or that she was scarred enough by it to be afraid to call us anything because she thinks we’ll do the same.”

“Yeah,” whispered Michael.

They were silent for a stretch of minutes, sitting with that thought, all of them thinking of the little girl asleep down the hall. The little girl who had been to Hell and back and _survived._ The little girl who was still haunted and wounded by that journey, and probably had even more secrets about it that were equally as painful as the one that had come to light that morning. They each ached for her in their own way, but they all knew that Lily was as full of surprises as she was of hurt and that she would likely amaze them ten more times before dinner, and with that came a healthy measure of comfort.

Eventually Madeline said, “Well, we’ve been trying to figure out the birthday thing. You got any ideas, Michael?”

“Ice cream and new crayons.”

“Yeah, that’s about all we’ve come up with, too,” Sam said, resuming his pen tapping.

Michael took the pen away from him. “Maybe we’re overthinking this. We know what she likes, we could just sort of have it all on hand and let it be at that.”

“And not tell her why?” Madeline asked.

“No, we should tell her. But without making a big deal about it.”

“You’ve probably got the right idea, Mike.” Sam tried to snag his pen back but Michael moved it out of the way at the last second.

“It just doesn’t feel like enough,” Madeline said quietly.

“Then I’d guess it’ll be just about perfect for Lily,” Fiona replied.

“I could bake a cake?” Madeline offered.

“ _No,_ ” Sam, Michael, and Fiona said in unison.

 

~~~

 

It was eleven when Fiona slipped quietly into the bed in Nate’s room, not at all surprised to find another body already in it.

“Hey,” Michael whispered.

“Hey,” she whispered back. “I was in with Lily.”

Michael rolled over to face her. Their vision was already adjusted—the house had been dark for a while. A sliver of moonlight was coming through the curtains, making him look almost haunted where it was reflecting in his eyes. “Did you sleep any?”

She shook her head. Sometimes Fiona did doze off when she stayed in with Lily, but her brain was working overtime tonight.

“Me, neither.” Michael reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder, rubbing his thumb along her arm. “What’s running around in your head?”

Fiona sighed. She had to hand it to Michael; he really was trying, and if she was honest with herself, she needed to scale back the stubbornness and accept the olive branch. He was finally making a concerted effort to give her what she’d wanted from him for years, but there was still that nagging voice at the back of her head—the one that said in her ear, _He left. Just left, without a trace. He did it once, he’ll do it again, and it won’t just be you he hurts this time._

She thought about the little girl asleep in the next room. Her little girl. _Their_ little girl, at least on paper. In reality, though, it had always felt like Lily was more Michael’s than anyone’s. It wasn’t that the child actually went around professing a preference, but when Michael was present Lily wanted nothing more than to be near him. It was no mystery why; they saw themselves in each other, and who could blame anyone for wanting to be truly understood? No, Fiona didn’t blame Lily—or Michael, for that matter—for their bond being so impenetrable, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t a little jealous. It was as if there was a locked glass box surrounding each of them, and they were the only ones with the keys. Fiona had always lingered outside Michael’s glass box, that wasn’t anything new. She was used to his distance, painful as it was, and she knew that it was so entrenched in Michael’s being that the only way to get in was going to be by invitation, and that had yet to be issued, at least fully. But Lily? It felt like every time Fiona managed to get Lily to open the door just a crack, Michael would show up and that little smidgen of progress would go up in smoke because Lily would automatically shut the door and turn her attention to him. _What’s running around in my head? It’s killing me that she’s barely letting me in because she’s afraid of what might happen if she does. She doesn’t talk to me like she talks to you. Her life revolves around you, and I can’t seem to join that orbit—I have to watch from outside_.

She said, “Do you really want to know?”

“I really want to know.”

 _Here goes nothing._ Fiona took a deep breath. “She’s never going to love me like she loves you.”

Michael’s thumb stilled in its path up the curve of her shoulder. “That’s not true.”

Fiona gave a disparaging huff.

“It’s not. It’s just different. You engage with her in a completely different way than I do—in a way that I probably couldn’t if I tried. I mean, rainbow C4? Fi, you’ve given her the ability to play and not worry that she’s going to get smacked around for it. Somehow you know how to give her the tools and the confidence that she _can_ do something with them, and she does. She needs that just as much as she needs to know that I’ve been where she’s been. Probably more.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I’m not. Hell, she catches on immediately to everything you teach her—it’s like she’s starving for it. And she always gives you everything she has when you two do something together. She _idolizes_ you, Fi. She wants to make you proud.”

“You think so?” She cringed a little at the sound of her own voice. _You’re pathetic_.

But Michael’s response was swift and solid. “I know so.”

Fiona felt him shift towards her and moved automatically, resting her head on his chest just below his shoulder as he pulled her into his arms.

“Speaking of things she’s learned from you, how long until we can get her her first .22, do you think?” he said into her hair, following the question with a kiss.

Fiona smiled. “Her hands are so tiny. It’s going to be a while unless we can come up with a workaround for that.”

“You’ll think of something,” Michael said. “You always do.”

 

~*~*~*~


	5. Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Whenever it fell to Michael to wake Lily up he always did it the same way. He would open the curtains but leave the sheers drawn so that the light wasn’t too harsh, sit next to her on the bed, and tickle her nose with some of her hair. Lily’s little laugh preceded her swatting the hair away from her nose and curling up so she couldn’t be tickled any more. Michael just changed tactics and started tickling her sides until she was completely awake and laughing full tilt, squirming around like an eel. He caught one of her legs and tugged her up the bed until her head was resting next to his knee, then leaned down and gave her a kiss. “Good morning.” 

“Hi.”

“Where’s your swimsuit?”

“Which one?”

“You have more than one?”

“Yeah. She got me three.”

_ Mama. Mama got you three. Come on, Lily-girl, we’ve got to get you over this, _ he thought, but he said, “Okay. Do you know where they are?”

Lily pointed at the dresser. “Why?”

“I have to go downtown for something and I’m dropping you and Mama at the beach while I take care of it.”

“‘Kay.”

Lily reached for him from where she was lying and Michael pulled her up against him, leaning back against the wall. While Lily had all the energy you would expect from an almost-five-year-old and she could be a wiggly handful when there were games to be played, in moments like this, when someone—any of them, really—just held her, she could be almost alarmingly still, as if she was trying to soak up every bit of the touch in case it was the last she ever received.  _ You’re never going to run low on this, Lily-girl. Not on our watch, _ Michael thought, kissing the top of her head. “Come on, let’s pick out a suit and get going.”

It was about an hour and a half later when Michael dropped Lily and Fiona off at the beach—Lily was easy to get out the door, it was Fiona who took her time. As he drove off Fiona looked down at the little girl beside her who was bouncing on the balls of her feet, ready to go. She had had the presence of mind to get sunscreen on the child before they left the house, so she said, “Go on, then, just stay where I can see you, and don’t go in farther than the water comes up to your knees.”

Lily needed no further encouragement and took off towards the sea.

Fiona followed behind, picking a spot on the sand and laying their towels out. All Michael had said about this seemingly random outing was that he’d had an idea for something to get Lily for her birthday, the most likely place to find it was downtown, and he thought that Fiona and Lily might like to hang at the beach for a bit. When she had pressed him on what exactly it was he was buying he had said,  _ I’m only getting it if I can find exactly what I want. I’ll show you after. _ Fiona had given up after that. If he was feeling mysterious there was nothing she could do one way or the other to get a straight answer.

She settled down on her towel and watched Lily. The child was carrying her sandals in one hand and filling the other with interesting things from the water’s edge. Fiona smiled. Madeline’s yard was quickly becoming inundated with seashells and colorful rocks and whatever else Lily managed to find when they took her places. She always doled out anything she deemed really exceptional to one of them—at this point, Fiona had an old mason jar about three-quarters full of extra-special Lily treasures.

After a few more minutes, Lily stopped and looked around. Finding Fiona on the beach, she scurried back towards her, depositing her shoes and the things she had collected next to her towel and tugging off her little swimsuit cover-up, a sage-green sleeveless hoodie dress with a kangaroo pocket made of a cozy sweatshirt material.

“You could have put those in your pocket, you know.”

“Nuh-uh. Gets all full of sand that way.”

“Come here a second.” Lily went to Fiona, who turned her around and adjusted her swimsuit which had ridden up at the back. Lily either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care, but there was a stubborn bruised spot near Lily’s hip that all the arnica in the world hadn’t been able to fade, and it could draw unnecessary attention. Besides, it made Fiona ache inside when she saw it. She gave the suit a final tug and, satisfied her daughter was covered for the moment at least, said, “Okay, all good.”

Lily took off for the water again.

Fiona watched her go. She had put Lily’s hair in two braids and wound them around her head in a coronet to keep them out of her way, and Lily had chosen the purple swimsuit with the white polkadots and the ruffle around the top and the tops of the legs. She looked positively darling, and Fiona couldn’t help but smile as she watched her playing in the water.  _ You’re mine, Lily-girl. We’ll figure it all out someday. _

A family with two small boys arrived and were setting up about ten yards from Fiona. The boys ran down to the water and were roughhousing with each other, getting closer and closer to Lily, who watched them carefully for a few seconds before picking up the little pile of shells she’d been collecting and hoofing it back to her mother. She added her shells to the heap by her towel and thumped down onto her tummy, holding her chin in her hands, mirroring Fiona.

“Done for a while?”

“Yeah.” Lily started to sort through her collection. She pulled two pristine shells and one interestingly shaped piece of sea glass away from the rest and set them in front of Fiona.

“For me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

“Can I take a look at the rest?”

“Yeah.”

Fiona started looking through Lily’s pile but stopped abruptly when Lily gasped.

“Mama, look!”

Thinking something was wrong, Fiona immediately looked the direction Lily was pointing, only to see a pod of dolphins playing just beyond the waves. She and Lily watched them together for a few minutes, Lily giggling when they jumped, until it suddenly dawned upon Fiona what the little girl had actually said. She looked at her daughter out of the corner of her eye. Lily was still enthralled by the dolphins, smiling, her eyes darting back and forth as they moved across the water, spinning and jumping and doubling back and doing it all over again.

“Lily?”

“Huh?” Lily replied, not taking her eyes from the water.

Fiona wanted to ask her to say it again, but changed her mind, figuring that would put Lily on the spot. Instead she leaned over and kissed her cheek. Lily looked at her and Fiona rested their foreheads together, bringing them nose to nose, saying, “I’m proud of you.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“ _ Because _ .” Fiona laughed.

“Because  _ why, _ Mama?!”

“Because  _ that _ !” Fiona scooped Lily into her arms, rolling onto her back, bringing Lily with her. “I was starting to worry that I’d  _ never  _ hear that word come out of your mouth and now that it has I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Lily smiled and kissed Fiona’s chin before resting her head on Fiona’s shoulder, and Fiona hugged her a little tighter.

“Feeling a little left out, here.”

Lily and Fiona looked up and found Michael about ten feet away, walking towards them.

“Well, get down here, then!” Fiona said, grinning.

He did.

“Are we going?” Lily asked.

“Not for a while. Go play.”

“‘Kay.” Lily rolled off of Fiona and started for the water, turning around halfway there, shouting back, “Mama!” and motioning for Fiona to go with her.

Michael, astonished, asked, “Did she just…?

“She did.”

“Well go, then. I’ll be here.” He gave Fiona’s knee a squeeze and watched as she joined Lily, who grabbed her hand and skipped beside her the rest of the way to the water.

 

~~~

 

“But what  _ is  _ it?”

“I’ll show you when I pick it up.”

“Why couldn’t you get it today?”

“Had to have it done special.” 

“You never tell me anything.” Fiona pouted.

Michael leaned across the plastic storage box she was holding and kissed her pout. “I’ll show you when I pick it up.”

“Fine.” Fiona heaved the box into the cubby in the loft wall. It was full of (rainbow) C4 which Michael didn’t like to store at Madeline’s if they could help it.

Michael closed the cubby and moved a couple of boxes in front of it. “So how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“When I dropped you two off at the beach, she wasn’t calling you anything. Now every other word is ‘Mama’.” He shifted Fiona out from in front of another box he wanted to move.

“I have no idea. She just said it out of the blue, and as far as I’m concerned, she can say it all she wants.”

“You know,” Michael said as he adjusted the box, “I never really thought I’d hear anyone calling you that.” He turned and found Fiona leaning against one of the metal supports on the stairs, looking down. “Hey,” he said, and her eyes came up, but not her head. “It sounds...right.”

“Does it?”

He closed the gap between them and took her face in his hands, tilting it up so they were eye to eye. “Yes.” 

“She’s still not calling you anything, though.” Fiona wrapped her hands around Michael’s forearms, gently running her thumbs along the skin on the insides of his wrists.

“Either she will, or she won’t, but she’ll do it in her own time like she did with you.”

“Doesn’t that bother you at all?”

Michael let his hands linger on Fiona’s face for another moment and then dropped them to his sides. “Not really, no,” he said, turning around and walking towards the kitchen. He only got halfway there.

“I don’t believe that,” Fiona said.

He stopped next to the bed without turning back to face her, because she was right. “It’s like I said. She’ll do it or she won’t. I’m not going to force it.”

“I understand that, but I’m not asking how you’re trying to help her overcome it. I’m asking if it bothers you that our daughter can’t bring herself to call you ‘Daddy’ because her first one was a cruel, soulless bastard.”

_ Our daughter _ .  _ Sounds just as right as Lily finally calling Fi ‘Mama’. Shoe’s on the other foot now, though. Suddenly Fi’s got the connection you thought you’d get first _ , he thought. “It doesn’t matter if it bothers me or not. It is what it is.” 

Fiona’s forehead came to rest on the middle of his back, her hands on his shoulder blades. “No. You don’t get to do this,” she said softly, kindly. “You can’t want me to tell you what I’m thinking and feeling and not give me the same courtesy. If this thing, this you-me-and-Lily thing, this  _ family _ thing is going to have any chance of surviving, you’re going to have to give a little more. We all are. So I’m going to ask you again; does it bother you?”

Michael took a deep breath. “Yes. It bothers me. Okay?”

“Okay. Why?”

“It just does.”

“Michael—”

“Fi, I can’t have this conversation right now.” He felt Fiona’s hands turn into fists against his back.

“Really?” Fiona stalked around in front of him. “Well, when  _ can _ you have it? Or are you just going to play the lone wolf like always and hide behind your double standard? I can’t do this alone. You told me  _ you _ couldn’t do it alone, that where my head was at was important. Well, guess what? It’s just as important for me to know where  _ your _ head is.”

Michael knew he was falling back on anger in an attempt at self-preservation, to keep from having to go to the dark places this whole situation was managing to edge closer and closer to, and he knew it wasn’t fair, but suddenly he felt trapped, and he snapped. “Dammit, Fi, stop fucking pushing! I’m not discussing it. It’s the past and it can stay there. Going forward, it’s Lily. That’s it.”

“If you can’t see how your past and her future—”

“Drop it, Fiona!”

They stared each other down; two set jaws, two pairs of eyes with fire behind them. 

“Clearly I was right to question your priorities.” Fiona turned and headed for the door.

He felt his chest go tight.  _ Way to make it worse, jackass, _ he berated himself. “Fi, wait.”

“Why? You’re not having this conversation right now, remember?”

“But we drove over together.”

She was at the door now, and as she opened it she looked back over her shoulder at him. “Find your own way back. You can do everything on your own, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

Michael watched her slam the door and flopped onto the bed. “Fuck.”

 

~~~

 

Sam meandered in the back door of Madeline’s place, six pack in hand, heading for the fridge and calling out, “It’s just me!”

“Shhh!” Madeline came into the kitchen. “Lily’s out cold.”

“Whoops. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Guess what?”

Sam grabbed the bottle opener off the top of the fridge and opened a beer, handing it to Madeline. “What?”

“She’s finally calling Fiona ‘Mama’.”

“No kidding? That’s great!” Sam opened himself a beer. 

The two of them went to the living room and settled on opposite ends of the sofa, Sam kicking his shoes off and putting his feet up on the coffee table, Madeline facing him, one leg tucked up underneath herself.

“So what brought that on, do you know?”

“No idea. Don’t care,” Madeline said.

“Fair enough.” Sam lifted his bottle in her direction and they clinked the necks together. “To progress,” Sam said.

“Progress,” Madeline echoed, and they drank just as Michael walked in the front door. “Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Mom.” Michael flung himself down into an armchair.

Madeline’s eye narrowed. “What’s wrong, Michael?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

Sam stood up. “You know, I think I’ll follow Lily’s example and crash for a while—I could do with a snooze. I’ll be in Nate’s room if anyone needs me. And try to keep it down, yeah?” 

Madeline knew Sam was purposefully giving her and Michael some space and she gave him a grateful look. He winked back as he went down the hall. Now alone with her son, she tried again. “All right. I didn’t hear the car, Fiona’s not with you, you look like you just ran a half-marathon, and you sat in that chair like you were trying to kill it. What’s wrong?”

Michael groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Or don’t tell me. I’m just your mother, it’s not like I care or anything.”

“ _ Mom _ .”

“Fine.” Madeline got up.

Michael sighed. “Mom.”

“Yes?”

“Fi and I had a…disagreement.”

She sat back down. “Okay. About what?”

Michael thumped his head back onto the chair.

Madeline waited, and when no response was forthcoming she said, “Children learn by example, Michael. Your father and I weren’t the best, and you and Fiona won’t be, either, unless you start communicating a little more.”

“You sound just like Fi.”

“She’s right you know.”

He loosed another sigh. “I know.”

Madeline pulled a cigarette out of the box on the end table and lit up. “So, what was the argument about?”

Michael kept his focus on the ceiling. “She asked me if now that Lily’s finally calling her ‘Mama’ it’s bothering me that she’s still not calling me anything.”

“And is it?”

Michael dragged a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter.”

Madeline decided she wasn’t having it.  _ No, you’re not getting off easy on this one. Not this time, _ she thought. “If you’re not going to take this seriously—”

“Dammit, Mom—”

“Answer. The question.” Madeline glared at him, knowing he could feel it even though he wasn’t looking at her. She waited, then asked again. “Is it bothering you that she won’t call you ‘Dad’?”

“Of course it’s bothering me!” Michael snapped in a terse whisper, raising his head and meeting his mother’s eyes.

“Okay. Why?”

Michael shook his head. “Mom—”

“ _ Why, _ Michael?”

Michael shot up out of the chair. “Because it makes me feel like I was the one who made her this way. Like she’s always going to associate that word with pain and fear, and if she applies it to me I’m going to somehow become the source of that. Because I hate the fact that she even has this hangup in the first place and I can’t just magically fix it!” He had been pacing the living room while he spoke, trying to keep his tirade quiet so as not to wake Lily, and now he stopped in front of the sofa and thumped down at the opposite end from his mother.

Madeline gave him a second to get his breathing under control and then said, “I think those are all perfectly reasonable things to be feeling.” Michael didn’t say anything, so she decided to give it one more little prod. “Are there any other reasons?”

He was silent for a moment, and then he whispered, “It makes me feel like I’ve turned into Dad.”

_ There it is, _ Madeline thought.  _ The twelve-thousand-pound, alcoholic, gambling, abusive elephant in the room. God damn it, Frank. Even dead, you’re still hurting our son. _ She ran her index finger down Michael’s forearm. “Sweetheart, you are not your father. You could never even come close.”

Michael closed his eyes.

“I know it has to hurt that Lily won’t commit to calling you anything, but I also know that she will in her own time. When she makes up her mind about something, she’s unmoveable. Kind of like someone else I know.” She nudged his ankle with her foot. “This isn’t just about her—it’s about all of us. We’re all going to have to open up a little. I know that’s hard for you, and I know that a lot of that is my fault, but think of the payoff, honey. There’s no better feeling than knowing that your baby is healthy and happy, and I hope you know that I want that for you just as much as I want it for Lily.”

They were quiet for a minute.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

He reached over and gave Madeline’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks.” 

“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Gotta call Fi.” He heaved himself up off the sofa, pulling his phone out of his pocket and starting towards the door, but stopped halfway there and looked back at Madeline. “Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“It wasn’t your fault. He hurt you, too.”

Madeline took a long drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly. “No, we did you today. We can leave me for another time. Go call Fiona.” She smiled and motioned for him to get on with what he was doing.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“I…”

They locked eyes, and Madeline said, “I know, sweetheart.”

 

~~~

 

When nothing else in the world seemed to be making sense, Fiona knew one thing that did, and it had never let her down. 

It took the first hundred rounds to quell the anger, the second hundred to imagine several iterations of a physical confrontation with Michael, the third hundred to be angry with herself for even  _ thinking  _ about pummeling him because his and Lily’s history of being pummeled was exactly what had gotten them into this to begin with, and the fourth hundred to prepare herself for attempting a rational conversation with him whenever they both got back to Madeline’s. 

The fifth hundred she shot because she felt like it.

By the time she got everything packed away and slung her range bag over her shoulder she felt almost normal, so she took a leisurely stroll through the pro shop on her way out. She was contemplating a wall case full of .22s with Lily in mind, but they were all much too big for her tiny hands and probably would be for a few years.  _ There has to be something we can get her sooner, _ she thought as she headed for the counter.

“Hey, Fi.”

“Hi, Ben. Can I get a thousand rounds of .45? The Remington, if you have it.”

“Sure thing,” Ben said, and went through the door behind the counter to a back room. After a few seconds he stuck his head back around the door frame. “I’ve only got the Winchester in .45, is that okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

As Ben popped back around the wall, the bell on the front door to the shop rang and a man walked in and stood a few feet away from Fiona at the counter. She had seen him in before—sometimes using the range, sometimes hanging out in the shop talking to Ben.

Ben shouted from the back room, “I’ll be right out!”

The man called back, “It’s just me!”

“Max?”

“Yeah!” Max turned to Fiona. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Ben came back out to the counter with a box. “Sorry, Fi, the .45’s been popular this week. Had to get the ladder out.”

“That’s all right.”

“Anything else?”

“Actually,” Fiona considered the box, “can I get a thousand in .380 ACP too?”

“Yeah, no problem. Max, you need anything while I’m back there?”

“Thousand in .9mm, 115 grain FMJ, please. But what I really need today is a recommendation.”

Ben went into the back room again, calling back over his shoulder, “Yeah? What for?”

“.22s. I don’t know what’s good right now and Zoey’s ready for something bigger.”

“Whoo, boy! Daddy’s little girl’s moving up in the world. She’s, what, seven now?”

“She’s gonna be eight in September.”

Ben returned with two more boxes, putting one in front of each of them and ringing up Fiona’s purchases. “Rueger is always good. So’s Walther. I’ll show you a couple.”

“Cool.”

Fiona slid a few bills across the counter to Ben and then turned to Max. “Out of curiosity, when did you start your daughter shooting?”

“I want to say it was...right when she turned six?”

“What was she shooting before if you’re moving her up to a .22 now?” Fiona asked.

“She’s kinda tiny—takes after her mama—so we started her on Airsoft. Grip was still pretty big, but you don’t have the recoil problem. You got a little one you’re wanting to get started with?”

“Yeah, but we might have to wait another year. She’s pretty tiny, too.”

“How old?” Max asked.

“She’ll be five next week.”

“You might be able to swing it. Most sporting goods stores have Airsoft stuff.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“No worries.”

Ben stacked Fiona’s boxes and pushed them across the counter. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

Fiona just shrugged, collecting her boxes and her change and heading for the door. “Thanks, Ben. See you whenever!”

As she closed the Saab’s trunk her phone started to ring, and when she pulled it out of her bag it was Michael’s name on the screen. She slid into the driver’s seat and took a breath before she answered. “Is Lily okay?”

Michael, presumably caught off guard by the immediate question, took a moment to answer. “Yeah, she’s fine, why?”

“Because unless you’re calling to tell me that she needs me for some reason, I don’t want to talk to you. At least, not over the phone.” She was proud that her voice only shook a little bit.

“Where are you?”

“Range parking lot.”

“Which one?”

“Ben’s.”

There was a pause, and then Michael said, “Meet me at the little park around the corner? I’m at Mom’s, I can be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Fine.” Fiona hung up without waiting for a response and started the car.

 

~~~

 

Fiona was sitting on one of the benches in a circle around the central fountain in the park when Michael arrived. He knew she saw him coming, but her focus never shifted from the falling water, not even when he sat down beside her on the bench. They watched the fountain play for a moment.

“Did you see Lily?”

“She was asleep. And she miraculously managed to stay that way while Mom and I…hashed some things out.”

Fiona nodded but didn’t say anything, her eyes staying fixed forward.

Michael sighed. “I know you know why this is difficult. You know why I followed the path I did. It was easier to leave it behind than to face it.” 

More silence from Fiona. 

_ She’s waiting for an answer, _ he thought. “Yes, it’s bothering me that Lily won’t call me anything. I know she still associates fathers with being hurt and that’s probably a big reason why. It’s hard to know that she’s applying that logic to me—that she still doesn’t trust that I won’t somehow end up being the same.” He stopped for a moment, knowing Fiona needed to know the deepest reason. It was the hardest to own, and saying it out loud, regardless of the fact that he had already managed to once that day, was still not something he felt particularly comfortable doing. He took a breath, held it, and let it out, fixing his eyes on an old piece of chewing gum stuck to the pavement about three feet in front of him. “It…it makes me think I’ve somehow turned into my dad without noticing it.”

They sat in silence for a long stretch of minutes. Michael waited for a reply, a touch, anything, from Fiona, and he was about to give up and go, leave her some space to figure out whatever was in her mind, when her head came to rest on his shoulder.

“You’re nothing like your father,” she said. “And you’re nothing like hers, either. I don’t think you could be if you tried.”

“Lily doesn’t know that.”

“She does, Michael. She just needs a little more time.”

Fiona stayed where she was, her head a warm, comfortable weight on his arm. Michael reached to his right and picked a hibiscus flower—white with a bold magenta center, striations of the dark pink reaching out towards the ends of the pristine petals—out of the plant beside the bench, tucking it behind Fiona’s left ear before resting his head on hers. They sat for a while longer, no sound but the occasional passing car and the water in the fountain.

“Michael?”

“Hmm?”

She wrapped bother her arms around Michael’s one, pulling them closer together and resettling her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He kissed the top of her head in reply.

 

~*~*~*~


	6. Friday, June 19th, 2009

Sam had left shortly after Michael on Thursday afternoon to go spend some time with his current lady friend, Rosanna, but—for reasons yet to be disclosed—he had come back to Madeline’s late that night and was still passed out in Nate’s room. It was now eleven o’clock on Friday morning and Lily and Madeline were curled up on the sofa together reading. They were halfway through  _ Horton Hears a Who _ when the front door flew open and Nate rolled in, dropping a duffel bag and heading straight for the fridge.

“Hi, Ma! Holy crap, it took forever to get here from the airport. What the hell is up with the traffic around here? I mean, it’s not even rush hour! I tried calling Mike but he didn’t pick up, as usual. Is he working or what? Oooh! Tuna fish!” There was a clattering of dishes as Nate started making himself a sandwich. “Man, that flight was awful, too. Got stuck between this fat guy who snored the whole way and this old lady who made me look through, like, three albums of pictures of her prize show cat, and I didn’t have any cash on me so I couldn’t even get a drink. There was a baby on the plane somewhere that wouldn’t stop crying, the air blower above my seat was broken, the turbulence was terrible, it took my bag for freaking ever to show up on the carousel thing, and because Mike wouldn’t answer his damn phone I had to get a cab.” 

There was a momentary pause as Nate opened the fridge again to put away the remaining tuna, followed by the ping of a knife hitting the bottom of the sink. He walked back into the living room and flopped down in a chair with his sandwich, taking a bite. “Tho yeah. Tha’ wath annoying.” He swallowed. “What’s up around here, anyway? I thought I’d—”

Madeline had been waiting for her younger son to stop talking and actually pay attention to his surroundings since he walked in. She was sitting on the sofa facing him, expression resigned, resting her chin in one hand. Her other hand was resting reassuringly on Lily’s leg, because Nate’s sudden appearance had startled the child. Lily had slid behind Madeline and was watching him warily, her eyes just visible over her grandmother’s shoulder.

Nate stared for a second. “Um…”

“Lily? This is your Uncle Nate.”

Lily blinked at their unexpected guest and then disappeared completely behind Madeline.

“What the…?” Nate gawped. 

Madeline gave him a sardonic smile. “It’s nice to see you, honey. What brings you home?”

“Wait. What?  _ Uncle _ Nate? Since when does Mike have a—Oh,  _ snap _ , someone caught up to him, huh? I knew he had to have—”

“ _ Nathaniel, _ ” Madeline said sharply.

Nate stopped. “No?”

“No.”

“Oh. So…?”

“I’ll let your brother explain.” Madeline turned her head back to look at Lily who was still hunkered down behind her. “It’s okay, baby.”

Lily’s eyes appeared over Madeline’s shoulder again. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Nate said back, still a bit baffled.

The front door opened again. Fiona wandered in and Lily’s whole face appeared. “Hi, Mama!”

“Hey, Lily-girl!” Fiona noticed their visitor. “Oh. When did you get here?”

“About ten minutes ag—wait. Mama?!”

Fiona crossed the room and picked Lily up. “What? You don’t remember me and your brother having a baby almost five years ago?”

Madeline smirked. “Yeah, honey. You don’t remember Mrs. Grimaldi getting drunk and falling over at the baby shower?”

“I don’t—There wasn’t—Wait,  _ what _ ?!”

Michael came in the back door. “Mom? I’m—Oh. Hey, Nate.”

“Dude! What the hell?”

“What?”

Fiona moved so that Michael could see her and Lily. “Uncle Nate doesn’t remember his niece, Michael.”

Michael saw the arch of her eyebrow and caught on. “You don’t?”

“What in the fuck is going on around here?” Nate spluttered.

“Language!” Madeline scolded.

“What’s all the noise out here? How’s a guy supposed to sleep with all this yelling going on?” Sam appeared from the hallway. “Oh. Hey, Nate.”

“Sam! What’s going on? Since when does my brother have a kid?!”

Sam logged Fiona’s eyebrow, Madeline’s smirk, and the quirk at the corner of Michael’s mouth and upped the ante. “Wow, Nate. You really did take a blow to the head that night, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“No  _ wonder _ you’re having trouble remembering,” Madeline said. “Last New Year’s when you were home you went to a party and someone clobbered you with a half-empty bottle of champagne.” She looked at Michael. “I told you we should have taken him to the emergency room.”

At this point, Nate was starting to look like he was seriously concerned for his sanity, and the panic on his face made everyone start to laugh.

Finally realizing they were pulling his leg, Nate frowned. “You guys are the worst.”

“Lighten up, sweetheart.” Madeline stood up and walked over to him, planting a kiss on top of his head. “We just take our kicks where we can get ‘em.”

"Yeah, funny.” He took another bite of his sandwich.

Michael looked at him. “Is that tuna fish?”

“Yeah,” Nate grumbled.

“Oooh!” Michael made a beeline for the fridge.

“So is anyone going to explain to me where the kid actually came from, or are you all just going to keep being weird?”

“She’s right here, Nate,” Fiona’s voice had an edge to it. “And her name is Lily.”

“Sorry,” Nate said sheepishly. He looked at Lily who was still in Fiona’s arms. “Lily, how did you end up stuck with these—”

“ _ Nate _ !”

“I wasn’t gonna swear! Geez, Ma.” He turned back to Lily. “Where did you come from, kiddo?”

Lily said, “They found me.”

“They found you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Michael walked over with his sandwich and handed a quarter of it to Lily. “I’ll explain later.”

Nate rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks.” 

“We do have one little problem,” Madeline said.

“What?” Nate asked.

“It’s a full house around here right now, honey. Lily’s in Michael’s room and Michael and Fiona are in your room most of the time. You’re going to have to deal with the couch.”

Sam coughed. “Um, Maddie? Not to make things extra difficult, but—”

Fiona snorted a laugh. “You’re in the doghouse again, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

Madeline smirked. “Okay, so Sam’s on the couch. I think there’s an air mattress around here somewhere.”

“Awww man!”

“I can always go in with Lily,” Fiona offered. “Then Nate and Michael can share.”

Michael said, “I’m not sleeping with him, he kicks!” just as Nate said, “I’m not sleeping with him, he hogs the covers!” Then they glared at each other indignantly and said, “I do  _ not. _ ”

“Look,” Sam said. “If Fi goes in with Lily,  _ I’ll _ go in with Mike, and Nate can have the couch. That thing is murder on my back, anyway.”

“Or Lily can come in with me, Michael and Fiona stay put, and Sam has Lily’s bed,” Madeline said.

“Hang on, that still leaves me on the couch!” Nate argued.

“You’re the one who showed up out of the blue, you get what you get,” said Fiona solidly.

Lily swallowed the last bite of the part of the sandwich Michael had given her and quietly said, “I can go in the wall.” She looked down. “Or the closet. Then maybe it doesn’t matter so much.”

“ _ No! _ ” Michael and Fiona said immediately and with such vehemence that Lily started a little and automatically reached a hand up to her chin. Fiona held her a little tighter and Michael passed his plate to Sam before gently pulling Lily’s hand away from her face.

“Nope. No walls and no closets, Lily-girl. Uncle Nate gets the couch ‘cause he’s a pest. You get to stay put.”

“‘Kay.” She leaned her head over to rest on his shoulder.

“I’m a pest?! You know, I wonder why I bother coming home sometimes,” Nate grumbled.

“Why  _ are _ you here, anyway?” Michael asked.

“Yeah…about that…”

“Oh god, never mind. We’ll talk about it later.”

“But bro, it’s kinda—”

“Nope! Busy!” Michael steered Fiona towards the couch, sitting in one corner and pulling her, with Lily still in her arms, down next to him and up against his chest.

Sam gave Nate Michael’s plate. “Be a sport and put this in the sink, will ya?”

“And then you can help me make lunch. Well, everyone else’s, anyway.” Madeline added.

Nate stared at them all, incredulous, before wandering to the kitchen, muttering obscenities under his breath.

 

~~~

 

“Okay, seriously,” Nate said later, after Lily was in bed and they were gathered in the living room. “What the heck is going on around here? I never thought I’d come home and find my super-spy brother willingly snuggling  _ anything _ , let alone the cutest little girl I’ve ever met in my life—and getting covered in glitter while he was at it.”

Nate was pointing to Michael’s sleeve, and when he looked, sure enough, there was a little patch of sparkly tidbits. “It comes off that damn hippo,” Michael muttered, brushing at the offending decoration.

Fiona gave him a look. “She happens to  _ love _ ‘that damn hippo’, Michael.” 

“I know she does.” Michael squeezed her knee.

“For real, though, how did she end up with you guys?” Nate asked. “I never saw you two as exactly, you know, the parent type.”

“Sometimes life has other ideas,” Fiona said. 

“Did she mean it when she said you found her?”

“Yeah.” Michael shifted a bit in his chair so he could look his brother in the eyes. “In a mangrove swamp, beat to shit and scared as hell.”

Nate’s face registered shock, then understanding. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“I get it.”

“Yeah.”

The brothers shared a long look, mutual memories telegraphing between them. Then Michael punched Nate’s shoulder.

“Ow!” Nate exclaimed before retaliating in kind.

“That all you got?” Michael taunted.

Nate grinned and wound up to pop him again, but Madeline interjected. “Boys! Take it outside or knock it off.”

“Sorry, Ma,” they chorused in a very rehearsed fashion, which made Fiona smirk, Sam chuckle, and Madeline thump her forehead into her hand.

“Sometimes I wish you two had been girls,” she grumbled.

“They fight harder,” Fiona whispered.

“Shit, honey, I’m sorry,” Madeline apologized. “I forgot.”

Fiona just nodded, biting her lower lip.

Michael looked up at her where she was perched on the arm of his chair. He had seen that look before—her eyes were clouded over, looking inward, into the past. Claire’s death had been a major turning point in Fiona’s life. It had the biggest hand in making her who she was now; her intolerance of injustice towards her loved ones, her ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ attitude, her iron-willed perseverance. She usually spoke of her sister’s death in anger, but it was clear now, in this moment, that there was so much more to it than that. It wasn’t as if Michael was unaware of the hurt, but, like most other things with Fiona, he had never asked or pushed past the angry facade in an attempt to understand the pain behind it, much less try to ease it. He slid and arm between Fiona’s side and the back of the chair, wrapping it around her as best he could, mentally kicking himself.  _ I don’t think I ever really realized just how much it destroyed you that Claire was angry with you when she died, Fi. _

“Well,” Nate said after a moment’s silence. “I’m bushed, so if you all wouldn’t mind vacating my  _ bedroom _ …”

“I’ll get you a pillow,” Madeline said.

As they stood up, the screaming started.

Michael was down the hall almost before the rest of them registered what was happening, bolting into Lily’s room, finding her sitting straight up, eyes wide open but unfocused. 

“Lily! Lily-girl, it’s a dream.” He pulled her towards him—not an easy task. Lily was stronger than she looked when she was awake, and when she was stuck in a nightmare her strength seemed to double. He managed to wrestle her head against his chest. “Listen to me. It’s not real. It’ll go away when you wake up. Wake up, Lily-girl. I know you can hear me. Follow my voice. Come back to me.” She wasn’t pulling away as hard now, and the screams were subsiding. “Atta girl, that’s it. I’ve got you. None of it’s real, it can’t hurt you. Come back to me, Lily-girl.”

Lily’s whole body shuddered, and she fell silent, her breathing ragged.

Michael held her for another few seconds, then leaned her back away from him a little so he could see her face. “Hey there. You back with us?”

She nodded.

He pushed back some hair that had fallen over her eyes. “Atta girl, you’re okay. I’ve got you.”

The tears were starting now. Lily looked up at him, hopeless and lost and scared, and asked, “Daddy, why won’t they leave me alone?”

Michael stared at her, caught completely off-guard.  _ She said it, _ he thought. _ She actually said it. _ He opened his mouth to reply to her question but nothing came out, so he closed it again.

Lily was still looking at him, her eyes begging for reassurance, tear after tear falling silently. One dripped onto Michael’s wrist and brought him back to the moment. “They will, Lily-girl,” he said, pulling her as close as he could, kissing the top of her head, speaking his next words into her hair. “They will. And until they do I’ll be here to chase them away.”  _ And anything or anyone else that so much as looks at you wrong. I won’t let a damn thing near you that could hurt you. Ever. _

“Daddy?”

_ I get it, Fi. I know why you never get sick of hearing the word ‘Mama’ come out of her mouth.  _ Michael swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Promise?”

It was more than a promise. It was a vow; carved in stone, emblazoned in flaming forty-mile-high letters on the side of a mountain, tattooed across his heart in indelible ink. “I promise.”

 

~*~*~*~


	7. Saturday, June 20th, 2009

Half-awake, Michael grunted, stretched, and rolled over, trying to settle into a more comfortable position. He encountered a lump, however. And it  _ pushed. _

“Mmmph, Daddy.” 

He felt another push and opened his eyes to Fiona’s still-sleeping face and a tangle of brown wavy hair coming from underneath him. 

“ _ Daddy _ ! You’re squishing me!”

His brain caught up with the situation and he rolled back a bit, revealing Lily’s face. “Whoops.”

Lily wrinkled her nose at him.

“Oh, please,” he said, keeping his voice down. “I was barely squishing you. Now  _ this _ is squishing you.” He rolled back over, putting just enough weight on her to be particularly heavy.

Lily squeaked out a giggle which roused Fiona enough to thump Michael on the shoulder. “Go torment the child somewhere else,” she grumbled. “Mama’s trying to sleep.”

“Uh-oh,” Michael whispered. “We’re in trouble already. Come on.” He scooped Lily up and carried her out of the room. “We’ll leave her alone until she’s less cranky.”

A pillow flew out the bedroom door behind them.

“You missed, Fi!” Michael whispered loudly and grinned. There followed a half-comprehensible string of what he recognized as particularly Irish swear words and he looked down at Lily, who looked back a little nervously. “Don’t worry.” He kissed her nose. “Mama just needs coffee. We can take care of that, right?”

That got him her crooked little grin. Michael walked them to the kitchen, set her on the counter, and started the coffee, pulling down five mugs and one short glass which he filled with milk and set next to Lily. The fridge was reasonably stocked for once and he sent up a silent thank you to whoever had the presence of mind to go grocery shopping last. He started collecting ingredients and tools and setting them up on the counter, being as quiet as possible since Nate was still asleep on the sofa. Lily watched and drank her milk. Once or twice Michael caught her ankles where they were dangling over the edge of the countertop and held her legs out straight so he could get into the drawer underneath her, which made her giggle.

As the coffee neared the end of its percolating, Nate got up and joined them in the kitchen. Michael silently handed him a mug and Nate grunted in reply, going straight for the coffee pot. After his first sip proved hot enough to make him grunt again, he opened the freezer, threw a couple of ice cubes into his drink, and bravely chugged the rest of it. Then he refilled his mug and started doctoring up a second.

“Here.” Michael handed his brother a green packet of sweetner from a little dish on the windowsill. “Mom’s using this stuff right now.”

“Thanks.” Nate added the contents of the packet to Madeline’s coffee. When he turned to head down the hall he found Lily watching him. “You want to come with me?” 

Lily nodded.

“C’mere.” Nate picked her up off the countertop with the arm not holding a mug and they continued towards Madeline’s room. The door was open just a hair and he bumped it with his hip to give them enough space to get in. 

And immediately turned around and headed back to the kitchen.

“Bro,” he said, gently setting both Lily and the mug back on the counter.

Michael was separating some eggs into a small bowl—egg whites for Fiona—and didn’t look up. “Huh?”

“ _ Bro. _ ”

“What?” Michael looked at him this time.

“Did I, like, miss something?”

Michael was confused. “What do you mean? Why didn’t you give Mom her coffee?”

“Does Sam take his coffee black?”

“Yeah, why?”

“‘Cause I’d better take his in, too.”

Michael stared at his brother. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. That’s what  _ I _ thought.”

“ _ What? _ ” Michael’s eyes went wide, terrified that Lily might have seen something she shouldn’t.

Nate quickly said, “No, Mike, they weren’t, you know. They were sleeping.”

“Just sleeping?”

“Just sleeping.”

“What else would they be doing?” Lily asked with perfect almost-five-year-old innocence.

“ _ Nothing _ !” Michael and Nate replied simultaneously.

Lily looked down and her hand immediately went to her chin.

Michael flinched and Nate saw it, and since he was closer he got an arm around Lily and gave her a little hug.

“Well, we are kind of at capacity with beds around here,” Michael said, but he was pretty sure there was more to it than that. He grabbed the mug he had fixed up for Fiona, then slipped in and snagged Lily off the counter. “Can you start toast or something?” he asked Nate. “We’ll talk about the other thing later.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Careful to keep his eyes from straying towards his mother’s bedroom door, Michael took Lily with him back to her room and put Fiona’s coffee on the bedside table before settling them down on the bed and whispering, “How should we wake her up?”

Lily crooked her eyebrows for a second in thought, then crawled out of his lap and snuggled up against her mother, using her eyelashes to give Fiona butterfly kisses on her nose.

Michael saw Fiona’s hands start to move and managed to get hold of her wrists before she unconsciously clobbered the child.

Fiona stirred, tugging at Michael’s grip, but stopped immediately when she opened her eyes. She shot him a look that said  _ thank you, _ and he let go so she could get her arms around the little girl. “Good morning. Again.”

“Me an’ Daddy made you coffee!”

“Thank you.”

“Me an’ Uncle Nate went to give some to Gramma and Uncle Sam’s in there, too.”

Fiona tucked Lily’s head under her chin and looked up at Michael. “Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh.” Lily’s reply was slightly muffled.

“Apparently,” Michael confirmed. “Can you…for a few? Nate and I might need to…”

Fiona snorted a laugh. “Be nice. They’re consenting adults.”

“That is  _ not  _ the point,” Michael said, giving her a look.

Fiona just kept laughing. 

Michael glared at her as he left the room and went back to the kitchen, where Nate was hovering over the toaster holding a butter knife. As the toast popped up Michael grabbed his brother’s wrist and replaced the knife with a pair of wooden toast tongs. “Seriously. How many times do you need to get zapped before you figure out that’s a bad idea?”

“I don’t do it from the top anymore! I do it from the side.”

Michael rolled his eyes and turned back to the eggs he’d abandoned. The brothers worked side by side for a few minutes until they heard footsteps come down the hall, and turned as one towards the sound.

Sam lumbered into the kitchen, stopping in his tracks when he met Nate and Michael’s scowls. “Look—”

“No,  _ you _ look—”

“Nate,” Michael interrupted and took away the toast tongs which his brother was now brandishing menacingly in Sam’s direction. “Let him explain.”

Sam dragged a hand down his face. “Your mom was pretty upset because Lily was upset, I wasn’t exactly un-upset myself, we got talking, I fell asleep in there.”

“That’s all?” Michael asked.

“That’s all.”

“If—” Nate was stopped by Michael smacking him on the back of the head. “Ow! What the hell?”

“If he says that’s what happened, that’s what happened. You want some coffee, Sam?”

“Thanks.”

Michael slid a fresh mug across the counter.

“Got one of those for me?” Madeline asked, entering the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s the yellow one,” Michael said from the stove.

“Thanks, honey.” Madeline took a sip. “Why is your brother sulking?”

“I’m not sulking,” Nate said sulkily, swiping the toast tongs back from the counter where Michael had set them.

Madeline smirked. “No, of course you’re not. Where are the girls?”

“In Lily’s room in a cuddle puddle,” Michael responded, pouring the eggs into the now-heated pan and starting to scramble them.

Nate snorted. “Bro. Did you seriously just say ‘cuddle puddle’?”

“Shut up.”

“I hope you separated some of that, Michael,” Fiona said as she wandered in, Lily on her hip.

Michael gave her a look. “Give me some credit, Fi.”

Fiona handed Lily off to Sam and went to pour herself another cup of coffee. “Nate, you never did tell us why you were here.”

Interested as Sam was to hear about what had brought Nate home, Lily was peeking up at him curiously and he had a feeling there was a question brewing. “Let’s go pick up the paper, huh?”

“‘Kay.”

Sam headed for the front door, carrying Lily with him out into the bright, humid Miami morning. “You sleep okay last night, squirt? That was a pretty bad dream you had.”

“Yeah,” Lily said. “Daddy stayed, an’ Mama came in, too. It wasn’t scary after that.” 

_ Yes! _ Sam did a mental fist pump.  _ Mama and Daddy. God, it’s good to hear you say those words, squirt. _ He shifted Lily up further in his arms so he could kiss her cheek. “That’s good.” They had reached the end of the path. Sam stooped down to grab the paper and as he stood back up, the expected question came.

“Uncle Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you in bed with Gramma?” 

He switched Lily to his other hip and started back towards the house. “Well, when you have really bad dreams like that it makes us all sad. So Gramma was sad, and I was sad, and we were talking to each other and trying to cheer each other up, but because Uncle Nate was on the sofa we ended up in Gramma’s room. And at some point, we fell asleep.”

They were back to the steps now, and Lily looked down at the ground. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said before she buried her face in Sam’s shoulder and started to cry.

_ Shit. _ “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay.” He walked up the steps and sat down on the glider on the porch, starting the seat swaying. “It’s not your fault. I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was. No, Lily,” he pulled her as close as he could, “it makes us sad because we can’t stop your dreams from happening. It makes us sad that they’re so scary for you. We know you can’t help having them, baby.”

He kept the glider going for a few minutes, holding her, waiting for her to calm down, but as soon as Lily’s tears began to subside, raised voices started to come from inside the house.  _ Great. Now we  _ have _ to stay out here because they’re ripping each other’s heads off in there. _ Lily had gone still—Sam knew she was listening to the ruckus inside. “You want to read the funnies?” he asked by way of distraction. As he started to pull the rubber band off the newspaper, Madeline came outside.

“Oh, there you are.” She flopped down next to them on the glider and looked at Lily. “Your Uncle Nate is a pest.”

Sam saw the flicker in Madeline’s eyes and knew she had noticed that Lily had been crying, but she didn’t say anything. She just reached over and started erasing the salt tracks on the little girl’s cheeks with the heel of her hand.

“You won’t believe what he’s managed to get himself mixed up with this time. It’s not exactly his fault but he really should have seen it coming. Your mama and daddy are in there reading him the riot act.” Madeline scooted over closer to Sam and Lily and patted her pockets for her cigarettes. “Darn it, I must have left them inside. Oh well.”

Lily reached over and took hold of Madeline’s index finger, and Madeline rubbed her thumb up and down Lily’s wrist, leaning against Sam’s side.

_ This is that thing I missed out on, _ Sam thought.  _ Just never the right person in the right place at the right time, I guess. Well, enjoy it now, Axe. You can. _

About ten minutes later the front door opened and Fiona walked out onto the porch. “Sam, it’s time to cash out that savings bond Great-Aunt Margaret bought you for high school graduation. We’re going to Vegas.”

 

~*~*~*~


	8. Sunday, June 21st, 2009

Michael, Sam, Fiona, and Nate were pretty scarce between Saturday morning and Sunday evening. They were running around prepping for Sam and Fiona to go to Las Vegas with Nate to sort out the gang who were trying—increasingly less subtly—to force Nate into a contract whereby they had control of his moderately-sized fleet of executive vehicles to use for any and all of their less-than-legal dealings in exchange for protection from rival gangs and the authorities. Fiona was calling in favors and looking up old business contacts in the greater Las Vegas area, Sam was elbow-deep in research on the gang, and Michael was masterminding a plan he wasn’t going to be able to execute on-site. He couldn’t leave Miami without raising a whole heap of trouble so he was phone support only on this job, and that meant that he was being extra meticulous with what he  _ could  _ control. Nate was running between the three of them supplying intel and rounding up supplies on the Vegas end, since traveling with an arsenal was tricky. Luckily they had managed to convince one of Nate’s buddies who ran a charter jet company to fly the three of them out and Sam and Fiona back.

Nate entered the house around five o’clock on Sunday evening and found his mother on the sofa with a cigarette and a paperback. “Hi, Ma.”

“Hi, honey. You get everything sorted out?”

“Yeah, just got back from Will’s hangar at the municipal airport. Don’t know where everyone else is, though.”

“Well, they’ll show up when they show up. You hungry?”

“I could eat.” Nate looked around the living room. “Where’s Lily?” 

Madeline laughed. “She’s busy remembering the Alamo.”

“What?”

“Go look in her room.”

“Okay…” Nate headed down the hall and stuck his head around the doorway to Lily’s room where he found an old sheet draped over a couple of borrowed chairs and the edge of the dresser. “Lily?”

One big blue eye peeked out at him through a hole in the sheet. “Yeah?”

“You hungry?”

“Nuh-uh. Maybe. Kinda.”

Nate laughed. “Well, which is it?”

“Dunno.”

“What are you doing?”

“Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“ _ Secret _ stuff.”

“Oooh, what kind of secret stuff?”

Lily stuck her head out between the sheet and the front of the dresser and gave Nate a weary look she could only have learned from Fiona. “If I  _ told  _ you it wouldn’t be  _ secret _ .”

He hid a smile. “Promise I won’t tell.”

“Hmm.” Lily eyed him up and down. “‘Kay.” 

She pulled the sheet back and Nate sat down, pulling it closed behind him. On the floor in front of Lily was an old box that he recognized. “Where did you find this?”

Lily pointed toward the closet.

“I bet there’s some really funny pictures of your dad in here.” Nate started digging through the box. “Ha! Look at this one!” He held a photo out to her. It was Michael, looking about Lily’s age, with his hair all over the place and the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face, which made Lily laugh. Nate flipped the picture over and read what was written on the back. “‘Michael, age 4. Just told him he’s going to be a big brother.’ Huh. That smile didn’t last long after I showed up, I’ll tell ya.”

Lily snuggled up next to Nate and he moved the box a little to make room for both of them to see. They sat there together for about half an hour looking at the pictures, reading the cards, checking out all the little trinkets and drawings that were in the box, and then Nate pulled out a photo that made them both howl with laughter.

“Gramma’s hair looks funny!” Lily squeaked.

Nate looked at her. “Gramma’s hair  _ still _ looks funny!”

“I heard that!” Madeline said from the hallway.

Lily’s eyes went wide and she clapped her hands over her mouth, but Nate kept laughing. “I don’t know what you were thinking with this ‘do, Mom.”

“What’s the year on the photo?”

“Um,” Nate flipped it over. “1982.”

“Oh  _ lord _ ,” Madeline groaned, but it turned into a laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking, either. Are you two going to come out and eat or what?”

 

~~~

 

A couple of hours later Michael wandered in, finding Madeline the same way his brother had earlier in the evening. “Hi, Ma.”

“Hi, sweetheart. You hungry? There’s some leftovers in the fridge.”

“Thanks. Did Nate come back yet?”

“Yeah, a few hours ago. He’s in with Lily.”

“Huh. Okay.” As Michael made his way down the hall he heard Nate’s voice.

“Seriously?!”

“Uh-huh.” Lily giggled.

“Geez. That’s the third time already this round!”

Michael leaned on the doorframe, speaking to the disembodied voices coming from the makeshift fort. “If you’re in there teaching my daughter to play Blackjack there’s going to be hell to pay.”

Nate pulled the sheet aside. “Oh, thank  _ god _ . I’m getting slaughtered at Goldfish in here!”

“Goldfish? Don’t you mean Go Fi—” Michael stopped mid-word when Nate cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh. Goldfish. Of course.”

Lily flopped over onto her side so she could see out of the fort. “Uncle Nate’s  _ really bad  _ at it, Daddy.”

“Hey!” 

“What?” 

Nate faked a pout. “Not nice.”

“But it’s true!” Lily giggled and hugged him by way of an apology before crawling out of the fort and running to Michael. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He picked her up.

“Where’s Mama?”

“She’ll be back soon.” 

“‘Kay.” Lily looked at him for a minute, chewing her lip.

“What’s up, Lily-girl?”

Lily looked over at Nate, who had extricated himself from the fort and was re-boxing the cards, then back at Michael. “Mama an’ Uncle Sam are going home with Uncle Nate tomorrow?”

“Yeah, they are. But they’ll be back after a couple of days.”

“But not Uncle Nate?”

“Nope, not me,” Nate said. “Sorry, kiddo. I have to get back to work.”

Lily looked back and forth between her father and uncle again, then stretched up and kissed Michael’s chin before turning her upper body around, reaching for Nate, who took her out of his brother’s arms, the look on his face half surprised and half pleased. 

Michael just shrugged. “Mom said there were leftovers. Leftover what?”

“Tuna casserole,” Nate and Lily replied in unison. Well, mostly. Lily had a little trouble with ‘casserole’ and it came out as ‘carousel’.

“I should have guessed. I saw the batteries from the smoke detector on the counter.”

 

~*~*~*~


	9. Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Fiona was stuck somewhere between feeling completely awful for leaving Lily for a few days and being relieved she had to, because from the moment they woke up Monday morning Lily had been  _ clinging _ .

“We’re supposed to be at the airport at seven-thirty?” she asked over the lip of the coffee mug she was trying not to rest on Lily’s head, which was shoved up against her neck.

“Yeah,” Sam ground out, still working on the waking-up process. “You know you’ve got something stuck to the front of you, right?”

Fiona simply held out her non-mug-holding arm to show that Lily was really the one doing all the work to keep herself plastered to her mother, and Sam smiled.

Nate wandered over to the counter. As Sam passed him a mug he asked, “We all set to go?”

“I am. Fi?”

“Me, too. Michael’s out triple-checking the stuff in the car, so we should be better than set.”

Madeline shuffled down the hall to join them as Michael came in the back door.

“Okay, everything’s out there. Should be good to go,” Michael said, closing the door behind himself. “You’d better get on the road.”

“Right,” Nate said and walked back to the living room to retrieve his duffel bag.

Fiona looked at Madeline a little helplessly.

Madeline just smiled. “Wait ten years, it’ll be the opposite.” She reached over and gathered Lily’s hair into her hands, combing through it with her fingers in an attempt at comfort and tidiness all at once. “All right, Miss Lily, you’ve got to let go. She’ll be back before you know it, baby. Besides, Uncle Sam and Uncle Nate are going to feel really left out if they don’t get hugs, too.”

Lily gave a little sigh and peeled herself away from her mother, reaching to the side for Sam. 

“Don’t worry, squirt,” he said, taking Lily from Fiona. The child immediately got her arms around his neck and shoved her face into his collar, and Sam rubbed her back soothingly. “It’s just a couple days.” 

“‘Ove you,” Lily said, her words muffled by Sam’s shirt.

“Love you back.” 

Sam handed Lily to Nate and while the others said their goodbyes, Fiona turned to Michael. “It’s harder than I thought it would be to leave her,” she whispered.

“Now there’s two hearts you’ll break if you don’t come home in one piece,” Michael whispered back.

They locked eyes, and Fiona wondered,  _ When did you learn to say the right things and  _ mean _ them? _

Nate moved over to hand Lily to Michael. “Right, we’re out of here. See you guys whenever.” He trotted out the back door with his duffel bag.

Sam followed. “We’ll maintain radio contact. See you in a few days.” He leaned in and gave Lily another quick kiss, then did the same to Michael and cackled on his way out the door as Michael grunted and made a face.

“ _ Sam! _ ”

“See you in a few days, brother!” The door fell shut.

Madeline smirked and gave Fiona’s shoulders a squeeze. “Be careful, honey. Make sure the boys don’t do anything extra stupid.”

“I make no promises,” Fiona said.

Madeline rolled her eyes and went back down the hall, leaving Michael, Lily, and Fiona together in the kitchen. Lily reached an arm toward Fiona, and Michael mirrored their daughter. 

Fiona walked into the embrace, resting her head on Michael’s chest facing Lily. “ _ Nuair a chomhaireamh mo bheannachtaí, déanaim tú faoi dhó, _ ” she whispered, running her index finger down Lily’s nose.

Lily caught Fiona’s finger when it reached the tip of her nose and whispered back, “ _ Trí huaire liom tú. _ ”

Fiona leaned in and kissed Lily’s forehead, then tilted her head up and shared a kiss with Michael. The three of them stood holding each other for a long minute before Fiona sighed and pulled away, heading out the door to join Sam and Nate.

As they heard the car drive away, Lily leaned her head on Michael’s shoulder and started to pick at the top of the pocket on the front of his t-shirt.

“You want breakfast, Lily-girl?”

Lily shook her head and gave a little push on the arm that was holding her up.

Michael put her down and watched as she went back to her bedroom.

Madeline came back down the hall and peeked into Lily’s room before continuing to the kitchen. “She’s back in bed.”

“I guess it’s still early,” Michael said, but his face said something else entirely.

“She needs to learn to sort her feelings out on her own, too,” Madeline said, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “It’s okay to let her be sad once in a while. I know it doesn’t feel good, but you have to remember that you’re not always going to be there, no matter how much you want to be.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll let her miss her mama for a while, and if it starts to look like she’s having trouble pulling herself out of it, then we’ll help. But let’s let it sit for a bit.”

Michael nodded, head down, eyes fixed on the countertop.

“Michael.”

His eyes came up. “Yeah?”

“You’re doing fine.” She contemplated her son for a moment, and then added, “I’m proud of you.”

Michael dropped his eyes again, and then did something he hadn’t done since he was very, very little. He closed the gap between himself and his mother, rested his forehead on her shoulder, and just stood there, hands in his pockets. 

Madeline laughed and ruffled his hair, planting a kiss on the side of his head. “I know, honey.”

 

~~~

 

By comparison to the humidity of Miami, the dry heat of Las Vegas was a shock to Sam and Fiona as they followed Nate out of the plane. It hit like opening an oven after the self-cleaning cycle and rolled over them in a scorching, unending wave. Nate trotted on ahead of them to the car he had arranged—one from his fleet, dropped off by one of his guys—carrying a couple of bags and whistling, obviously pleased to be on his home turf.

Fiona stretched and yawned, letting the sun wash over her for a moment before collecting her bags. “What time is it?” she asked Sam.

“Mojito o’clock,” he replied, heaving a duffel over his shoulder with a grunt. “I can’t believe the bar on the plane wasn’t stocked.”

“He knew you were coming,” Fiona teased, and set off towards the car.

Will, Nate’s buddy and their pilot, stuck his head out the door of the aircraft. “Earliest I can do for the return trip is late Wednesday.”

“Okay, we’ll call you,” Nate shouted across the tarmac.

“Right!” Will waved and ducked back inside the plane.

Sam and Fiona tossed their bags into the trunk of the Town Car and got inside as Nate fired it up and started the air conditioning. “You have your own vents back there. Don’t know if they’re open, though.”

Sam started to play with the climate controls for the backseat and Fiona pulled out her phone. It only took one ring for Michael to answer.

“You guys make it okay?” There was an odd noise in the background.

“Yes. We’re on our way to Nate’s office now. How’s Lily?”

Michael laughed. “Jumping up and down and trying to steal the phone.”

“Well, hand it over, then.”

“Here, sheesh!” Michael said before a little voice came down the line.

“Mama!”

“Hi, Lily-girl.”

“Did you an’ Uncle Sam an’ Uncle Nate do the job yet?”

“Did we do the job yet? We just got here! We’ll do the setup tonight and hopefully finish it off tomorrow. Uncle Sam and I will be home after that.”

“Oh.” 

Lily’s disappointment was apparent, and Fiona scrambled for something to say that would divert the child’s attention. “Anyway, you have to make sure Daddy doesn’t mess up his part of the job, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I drew pictures to go with what he’s supposed to say so he doesn’t forget.”

“See? That’s perfect.” Fiona pulled the phone away from her ear for a second. “Say hi to Lily.”

“Hi, squirt!”

“Hey, kiddo!”

“Did you hear that?”

“Yeah! Hi back.”

“I’ll tell them. Lily?”

“Yeah?”

“ _ Nuair a chomhaireamh mo bheannachtaí, déanaim tú faoi dhó. _ ”

“ _ Trí huaire liom tú. _ ”

“Can you give Daddy the phone again, please?”

“‘Kay. Bye, Mama.”

“Bye, Lily-girl.” 

There was a momentary shuffle and the sound of a door closing, and then Michael’s voice came back. “You’d think you were being sent off to Siberia the way she’s acting.”

“How did the morning go?”

“We had about an hour of moping followed by a whole bunch of crying which I’m not sure would have stopped if I hadn’t come up with the idea to have her make me visual cue cards for the call script.”

He sounded exhausted and Fiona felt a little twinge of guilt. “We’ll get this done as quick as we can.”

“Don’t concentrate on quick; concentrate on correct.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. I just…”

“Feel bad for leaving her?” Michael finished her sentence.

“Both of you, actually.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom and I have got this. I’m pretty sure the worst of it’s over now, anyway. She’s four. It’s not like we can expect her to take it on the chin like a grown-up.”

“Still.”

They stopped at a traffic light and Nate turned his head around. “We’re almost there.”

“You need to go?” Michael asked.

“Probably should.”

“Keep me posted.”

“We will.”

“Fi?”

“Hmm?” 

There was a brief pause, and then Michael said, “Be careful, okay?”

It wasn’t the traditional ‘three little words’, but Fiona knew they carried the meaning anyway. “I will.”

She hung up as Nate pulled into a parking lot in front of a small building with another parking lot out behind that stretched around the sides into view, the chain link fence surrounding black SUVs, stretch limousines of varying lengths, and Town Cars identical to the one they were in.

“What, no hot pink Humvees?” Sam joked as they piled out of the car.

“We cater to a more executive clientele, thanks very much,” Nate said, faking a huff. He led the way into the building where they were all hailed with hellos from assorted staff. Once they were in Nate’s office, he shut the door. “All right. Let’s do this.”

 

~~~

 

Dressed in sharp suits, Sam and Fiona strode purposefully into The Dorsey, a swank cocktail bar and lounge inside the Palazzo, where they were met by a gentleman kitted out in the same fashion whose tie pin was a miniature playing card—a Suicide Jack—the identifier they’d been told to look for.

Sam extended a hand. “Rubio.”

“Finley.” The man shook Sam’s hand, then Fiona’s. “McBride.”

“Rubio.”

“Please,” the man posing as Rubio said, “have a seat.”

Fiona looked their contact up and down as they sat. He was taller than Sam and he looked as though he came from a mixed background—Caucasian and Latino or African-American or Caribbean, possibly all of the above. He had come highly recommended to them from one of Sam’s old SEAL buddies. His real name was Jesse Porter, and by day he was a counterintelligence agent for the Department of Defense. Apparently he had been more than happy to help them out and had told Sam’s friend that he had a backlog of sick days anyway and it would be nice to get out of the office for a change. 

A waitress came over to their sofa and quickly took their drink orders before disappearing back towards the bar.

“How was your trip?” Jesse asked once the waitress was gone, tilting his head subtly to his right, indicating that the trio of men seated on the other side of the back-to-back sofas were the ones meant to overhear their conversation.

“Oh fine, fine,” Sam replied. “Got us here in time to check in with Rainier over at High Desert Construction this afternoon. He’s going to be in hot water when we report back to HQ. You were right—he’s cooking the books.”

Jesse smiled. “I’m glad I wasn’t imagining it. He’s been subtle. I know HQ builds in a contingency for these things because the Head Man believes that if you’re clever enough to get it past the auditors and the circuit heads you’ve earned it, but Rainier’s getting greedy and it’s making him sloppy. If it weren’t for that I doubt I’d have noticed it.”

“It was a good call. You keep this up and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a promotion in it for you by the end of the year.” Fiona said. “We’re going to have to go back a ways in Rainier’s records and see where he started siphoning. HQ will decide how to…dispatch him once we have the details. Any requests?”

“I’d like to do it, if HQ will allow it. Nice to dust those skills off every once in a while.” Jesse gave Fiona a dangerous smile.

She returned it, noting with satisfaction that the group of men on the other side of the sofa had started to pay closer attention to the conversation. “The Head Man always appreciates a volunteer.”

Sam had noticed their neighbors’ sudden interest, too, and was about to speak when the waitress returned with their drinks. Once they were distributed and the waitress gone again, Sam raised his glass. “To the Head Man.”

“The Head Man,” Fiona and Jesse echoed, and they drank.

“We’re checking in with Westen tomorrow,” Sam said casually but loudly enough to be clearly overheard. “Have you heard anything more from him since he told you about the guy trying to make a move on him? What was the name?”

“Paynton,” Jesse answered. “He’s a big enough player around here, but I don’t think we’ll have any issues persuading him to lay off.”

One of the men on the other side of the sofa stood up, pulling his phone out of his pocket and heading for a corner of the lounge. Sam, Fiona, and Jesse all logged his movement, and Fiona said, “The Head Man wasn’t too pleased when he heard about it. Westen is a lucrative asset—he pays on time, keeps his mouth shut, and always follows through. If only they were all like that.”

“If they were all like that, McBride, you’d never get to tire-iron anyone’s kneecaps.” Sam smiled.

“True, true,” Fiona said, and finished her drink. “We’re with Westen at ten tomorrow. I assume you’ll be joining us?”

Jesse nodded. “Of course.”

“We’ll be on our way, then.” Sam knocked back the last of his drink and they all stood up, shaking hands, saying their goodbyes.

Jesse went one way when they left the Dorsey and Sam and Fiona went another. Jesse was going to watch Nate’s office building that night, and Sam and Fiona were ‘camping out’ at Nate’s house, spending the night in the car an unobtrusive distance away in case Paynton sent anyone around. They had gotten lucky with the weather—the nighttime temperature was supposed to get down into the seventies, so it would be warm but not unbearable. As Sam and Fiona exited the Palazzo and gave their tag to the valet, Sam nudged Fiona’s elbow.

“Check your six,” he said quietly. 

Fiona pretended to find a piece of fluff on her shoulder and peeked behind them. Two of Paynton’s associates had followed them down and were at the next valet kiosk. The third one, the one who had made the phone call, had either tailed Jesse or headed off somewhere else. 

The valet pulled up with their car—one of Nate’s, on which they had put fake license plates and covered the small company logos on the drivers’ side door and the trunk—and Fiona snagged the keys as Sam reached for them.

He raised an eyebrow at her but slid into the passenger seat. 

Both of them watched in the side mirrors as Paynton’s guys got into their own car. Fiona eased out into traffic and started weaving as soon as she could, making it look purposeful.

“They’re keeping up,” Sam said, eyes still on the mirror.

“Oh darn,” Fiona said. “Looks like they’re going to miss the light.” She slowed down abruptly, causing the Fiat behind them to slam on its breaks, then sped through the intersection just as the light went from yellow to red, turning a corner and leaving their tail stuck behind them.

 

~~~

 

Sam’s phone rang. “You make it okay?”

“Yeah, I’m settled in. I had a friend on my way out of the Palazzo. Did you guys have the other two?”

“We did. Lost them on the Strip.”

“I ditched mine in a back staircase. Grabbed a clipboard and waltzed out through one of the kitchens.”

Sam smiled. “Nice. Call us if you need anything.”

“Same goes for you. I’ll—Oh. Looks like Nate’s on his way home. He just pulled out of the office lot.”

“Thanks.” They hung up and Sam tossed his phone on the dashboard. “Nate’s on his way here and Jesse’ll call if anything goes down over there.”

Fiona crawled over the center console and back into the driver's seat, having just changed into one of her more abbreviated pairs of shorts and a tank top in the backseat. “Fine. Your turn.”

Sam opted to use the doors and let himself out and back in. He retrieved the jeans and t-shirt he’d stowed under the seat and started peeling himself out of his suit. “I don’t know how people wear these every day,” he grumbled. “What do you think of Porter?”

“Jesse? He’s not bad. I’ll give you a final evaluation once I’ve seen him shoot.”

Sam chuckled. “Fair enough.”

He finished changing and laid his suit out next to Fiona’s as best he could, then got out and sat back in the passenger seat with a thump. “And now we wait. You want to call Mike?”

“I sent him a text while you were changing. Told him the setup went flawlessly and we’d let him know if anything happened during the night.”

“Okay.” Sam reached into the backseat and snagged two bottles of water from the ice chest Nate had loaned them for the night, handing one to Fiona. “Hey, Fi?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you decide to use ‘McBride’?” 

Fiona went still for a second, and then shrugged.

Sam had been wanting to ask since the decision had been made the day before back in Miami. It was unusual that Fiona would choose to use Michael’s cover from Ireland all those years ago. Michael hadn’t said anything about it at the time, just raised an eyebrow at Fiona and received the same in return. Sam had known that that wasn’t the moment to ask, and he hadn’t been able to corner Michael to ask before they left, but he was going to be stuck sitting in a parked car with Fiona for the next however many hours and he figured now was as good a time as any. He studied her for a moment, watching her picking at the label on the water bottle and chewing her lip. “I was just curious.”

She nodded.

Nate’s car pulled into his driveway then, and he got out and went into the house. Fiona’s phone beeped and she read the text and replied before turning to Sam. “He let us know he’s home, and I said we were already here and we saw him.”

“Okay. I don’t see anyone lurking so I’m guessing he wasn’t followed.” A red Prius turned the corner and pulled into the driveway next to Nate’s car. “Hold up. The heck is this?”

A blonde woman exited the vehicle and let herself in the front door.

Sam and Fiona looked at each other, and Sam grabbed his phone.

“Hi, Sam. What’s up?” There was water running in the background.

“You’ve got company.”

“Oh shit, Paynton’s here?”

“You tell me. It’s a blonde in a red Prius.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t know she was coming.”

“And ‘she’ is?” Suddenly Sam could hear a female voice in the background, and she didn’t sound too pleased. 

“Um, Sam? Can I call you back?”

“Do we need to bust the door down, or is this a conjugal visit?” Sam was losing patience.

“Who the fuck actually calls it that?”

“Nate, if you don’t give me a straight answer in about three seconds—”

“Geez, Sam, she’s my girlfriend, okay?”

“Was that so hard? We’re out here. Remember to pay attention to your goddamned phone.” He hung up and tossed his phone back on the dash, running a hand down his face.

“Girlfriend?”

“Yeah. And she didn’t sound too happy with him.”

Fiona smirked. “It’s Nate. Are you surprised?”

Sam had to laugh. “No, not really. You want to crash for a while? I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

“Thanks.” Fiona reclined the seat and curled up on her side facing away from him. “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

She was silent for a moment. “McBride is the closest I’ll ever get to being able to take his name because of the burn.”

Sam reached across and rested a hand on her shoulder.

She let him leave it there.

 

~~~

 

Michael was lying awake, staring into the darkness, trying to relax and failing miserably. His skin felt too tight all over, and he was pretty sure this had to be what Sam meant when he talked about having an ‘itchy feeling’. It was making him restless, and Michael knew exactly what was causing it. He  _ hated _ having to work a job remotely. They had planned for every contingency, triple-checked sources and intel and locations, and it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sam and Fiona to execute the plan, he would just rather be there with them while they were doing it.

_ You’ll get to play your part tomorrow, _ he thought, rolling over in the bed in an attempt to find a more comfortable position, but his arm fell into the empty space where he was now used to finding Fiona and the itchy feeling intensified. 

_ Okay, maybe it’s more than the job. _

He missed her, and he knew Lily missed her. Everything felt a little off without Fiona around. Michael felt generally disconnected, and though Lily had recovered from her initial sadness she was still a little distant. The two of them had stayed close to each other all day trying to fill the space, and it seemed to Michael that the whole situation was similar to when your arm fell asleep—he and Lily had that pins-and-needles feeling, and they wouldn’t feel whole again until the blood flow resumed.  _ I guess the three of us just became a unit without knowing it. _

Fiona’s pillow came into focus as Michael let that thought settle.  _ Probably smells like her _ . He reached for it but stopped himself abruptly.  _ Get a hold of yourself, _ he snarled in his head.  _ You’re acting like a fucking lovesick teenager. _ He rolled over onto his side facing the other way. That wasn’t comfortable. He tried laying on his back, but that wasn’t working either, so he rolled onto his stomach and found himself face to face with the exact thing he was trying to avoid.

_ Oh, what the hell. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to find out. _

As he had assumed, the pillow carried Fiona’s scent, a strange combination of old and new. The old was the smoky pubs of Dublin—wood and worn leather and rain. The new was something delicately floral, much more tropical, and it mingled with the old fragrance in a way that seemed to enhance it. There was no dissonance; it was just two versions of the same woman. One who could blend into her surroundings but remain true to herself. And underlying the old and the new was a constant Michael knew and loved. 

Gunpowder. 

He smiled. Fifteen years ago he had fallen in love with a woman who smelled like gunpowder. No one would ever have thought that it would become the perfect analogy for the turns his and Fiona’s relationship had taken over time, but it had always been a perfect analogy for Fiona herself.

Michael buried his face into the pillow, took another lingering breath, and drifted off to sleep.

 

~*~*~*~


	10. Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Nate had given Sam and Fiona a spare house key, and having made it through the night with no sign of Paynton’s crew they decided to impose upon Nate’s showering and coffee-making facilities first thing in the morning. Sam was ironing their spare button-downs when Nate stumbled into the kitchen, having been awakened by the activity. 

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Sam singsonged. “Coffee’s done.”

Nate yawned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why is the vodka out?”

“Because, my importunate son,” Sam pulled his shirt off the ironing board, hanging it up and starting on Fiona’s, “mixed with water and spritzed on previously worn garments, it has a deodorizing effect. And, since this place is hotter than Satan’s ass-crack on the Fourth of July, people forced to wear suits to protect the livelihoods of certain brothers of certain best friends tend to get a little sweaty. Any more questions?”

Before Nate could say anything, Fiona wandered into the kitchen wrapped in a towel. “Shower’s all yours, Sam.”

“You find a spray bottle?”

“Here.” She handed him a half-full pump bottle of hairspray before grabbing her bag and disappearing around the corner into the dining room to change.

“Um,” Nate said, looking at the bottle. “That’s Ruth’s emergency bottle.”

“That’s fine, we’ll leave it for you so you know what to buy to replace it!” Fiona called from the next room.

“But—”

“Small price to pay for us helping get Paynton off your back,” Sam said as he poured the contents of the bottle into the sink.

Nate’s head sunk into his hands, his elbows resting on the kitchen counter. “You guys are going to get me in so much trouble.”

“By the sound of things last night, you’re already in it.” Sam smirked.

“You got that mixed yet, Sam?” Fiona called.

“Just about.” Screwing the top back onto the bottle, now full of a half-vodka-half-water solution, Sam grabbed Fiona’s suit and clean shirt and handed the whole kit around the corner. “Coffee’s on the counter. Red mug.”

“Thank you.” 

“No problem, sister.” Sam made his way down the hall towards the bathroom.

Fiona finished dressing and wandered back into the kitchen, finding Nate still holding his head. “That had better not be a hangover making you do that.”

“No,” Nate grumbled from behind his hands. “It’s my brother’s best friends.”

“Oh, do you not want us to finish this? I’ll call Will, then.”

“Sorry.”

Fiona started to attack Sam’s slacks and suit jacket with the vodka solution. “So, this girlfriend. Ruth, did you say her name was?”

“Yeah.”

“Why was she so upset with you last night?”

“This whole Paynton thing. She’s upset that I let it get far enough to need you guys to come out and help. And she wasn’t real excited when I told her how you were helping.”

“Is that why she left at eleven?”

“No, she had to go to work.”

“Work?”

“Yeah, she’s a—” Nate stopped abruptly. “She works the graveyard shift.”

Fiona gave him an appraising look. “And what does she do on this graveyard shift?”

“She works at one of the casinos.”

“In what capacity?” If Michael found out his brother was back to gambling Nate would be in a whole heap of trouble, and since they were already there, Fiona figured she and Sam could deliver any necessary reprimands on Michael’s behalf.

Nate busied himself pouring out a cup of coffee. “She’s…she’s a blackjack dealer.”

“Nate—”

“I’m not gambling, I swear!”

Fiona gave him a look.

“I’m not! I met her a while back, you know, when I  _ was _ playing.”

“I hope you’re telling me the truth, because if Michael—”

“Oh my god! What’s it going to take to make you people start treating my like an adult? Yes, I was a fuck-up. Yes, I did a bunch of stupid shit. No, I’m not perfect like my brother. I’m so sorry you’re all disappointed that I can’t be  _ just like him. _ I’m doing my best, okay? I’m not playing cards anymore. The business is doing really well. I’ve got a house, and a girlfriend, and yes, fine, she’s a blackjack dealer and with my history that makes you immediately think I’m up to my old shit again, but I’m not, okay?! Give me some fucking credit, Jesus!” 

Nate opened the refrigerator, slamming the door once he grabbed the milk and turning to his coffee, not meeting Fiona’s eyes. 

It took Fiona a few seconds to process what Nate had said but once she did she felt a pang of guilt—because he was right. They did all write Nate off as the problem child, and no one except Madeline had given him much credit for the changes he had made to his life in the last couple of years. Nate really had turned things around for himself, but Fiona knew that she had simply sat back and waited for him to fail— _ expected _ him to fail. And the admission that he felt so far eclipsed by Michael wasn’t surprising, but it made Fiona realize that so many of Nate’s life choices must have revolved around getting out from under his brother’s shadow.  _ He’s right. We don’t give him enough credit. _ She watched him put the milk away, and as he turned to leave the kitchen she said, “Nate.”

“What.”

“You’re right.”

Nate loosed a heavy breath.

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded and started up the stairs.

“Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Your brother is  _ far _ from perfect.” She couldn’t help smiling when she said it, and that seemed to come through because Nate chuckled.

“Coming from you, I know that has to be true.”

 

~~~

 

Nate arrived at work every morning around eight-thirty, which meant that Sam and Fiona were there at six-thirty in order to afford Jesse the opportunity to skip out for a while and clean himself up a bit. They were sure that Paynton and his crew knew the hours Nate kept and would show up around the time Nate did in an attempt to put the pressure on him before the (fictional) ten o’clock meeting, and probably stick around to chest up to Sam, Fiona, and Jesse. 

The building housing Nate’s headquarters had come equipped with a whole slew of security cameras, all of which fed to monitors in Nate’s office, at the front desk, and a back office where Nate employed a 24/7 security rotation. The security guy who was scheduled to be on duty had all been briefed about Sam, Fiona, and Jesse, and told to lay low unless things got so far out of hand that the drivers and office staff were in danger. Fiona and Sam took up residence in Nate’s office and kept an eye on the security feed while they waited for Jesse to return. The monitor was divided into four panels, two of which were fixed—one to the public parking lot and front entrance of the building, and one to the rear—and the other two cycled through the other cameras around the building and property. Drivers went in and out of the building, vehicles went in and out of the lot, the receptionist, the shift dispatcher, and the accountant showed up. As the footage flicked across the screens the office activity looked vaguely balletic—planned out, routine, executed with efficiency and an odd note of grace. About five minutes later the front camera caught Jesse coming back with a cardboard tray of takeaway coffee cups.

“I like this kid, I really do,” Sam said, grinning.

“Catered coffee gets points, but I’m still not going to be completely convinced until the bullets start flying.”

“If we do this right, there won’t be a need for bullets.”

Fiona sighed. “You and Michael have no sense of adventure.”

“No, we just prefer to settle things as quietly as possible, that’s all.”

“As  _ boringly _ as possible.”

Jesse bumped the office door open with an elbow. “What’s boring?”

“Jobs where you don’t get to shoot anything,” Fiona said, standing and relieving Jesse of his delivery, handing Sam a cup before setting the tray on top of a bookcase full of binders.

“I can’t argue with that,” Jesse said, taking a cup from the tray and sitting on the edge of Nate’s desk.

Fiona raised an eyebrow at Sam, who took a drink of his coffee and rolled his eyes before looking back at the screens in front of him. “Nate just pulled in. Looks like he’s got company.”

Jesse and Fiona moved so they could see, and they all watched as three men in suits surrounded Nate as he got out of his car, one of them muscling up behind him. 

“That’s Paynton,” Fiona said, pointing to the man to Nate’s left.

“Oh, Mike’s going to love that. He figured we’d just get the Brute Squad, but we’ve got the brains of the operation, too.” Sam smiled. 

Paynton and his men started toward the building in a tight group, Nate in the center. Sam, Fiona, and Jesse looked at each other, and Sam slipped out into the hall while Jesse moved to stand against the wall beside the office door. Fiona sat in Nate’s desk chair, kicked her feet up on the desk, and casually began screwing a suppressor onto the barrel of her Colt 1911. She was tightening it the last little bit when the foursome entered the office, Paynton and his guys obviously surprised to find Fiona already there.

“Gentlemen,” she said, chambering a round.

Paynton was about to say something when the sound of two more rounds being chambered came from beside and behind him, and he and his crew turned to look at the sources of the noise.

“Why don’t you boys let Mr. Westen go and come in. We’d like to have a little talk with you,” Sam said from the doorway, smiling dangerously.

“Why don’t you make us?” asked the goon pinning Nate’s arm to his back, gun shoved up between Nate’s shoulder blades. 

Paynton shot him a look, and the thug was cowed.

“Do you see the lady at the desk, my friend?” Jesse asked. “She will drop all three of you before you can get a single round into Mr. Westen there.”

Fiona’s grin was nigh on feral.

“That’s not a gamble you want to make,” Sam said. “Trust me. Just come in and sit down, and we’ll handle this civilly, like professionals.”

Paynton, surrounded and seemingly out of good options, looked at his thugs for a silent second, then nodded to the one holding Nate, who released Nate’s arm and decocked the gun, placing it in Sam’s outstretched hand.

“You’ve made the right choice, gentlemen,” Sam said. “Take a seat. We’re going to have a little heart-to-heart with the Head Man.”

 

~~~

 

Michael was in a ‘borrowed’ office, and Barry was in a mood.

“Just promise me you won’t touch anything, or move anything, or  _ destroy _ anything.”

“It’s a video conference call, Barry. What exactly do you think I’m going to destroy?”

“I’ve seen the aftermath of your jobs, Mike.”

“That’s all Fi and you know it!”

Barry scowled.

“Look,” Michael said as he started to set up a laptop on the mahogany desk. “We’ll be done in an hour and a half, tops, and Mr.—” He looked over at the gold nameplate on the desk. “—Stevenson will never know we were here.”

“If he checks the card scans he’s going to wonder why his accountant-slash-plant-sitter was here that long.”

“I’ll fix that on the way out.”

“You  _ so _ owe me, Mike.”

“I know. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.” Michael tested the webcam on the laptop, focusing it so that only his torso was visible on the screen, and once he was satisfied he slipped on a pair of black leather gloves. The only thing left to do was wait for the call from Las Vegas.

Barry was behind Michael gently spritzing one of Mr. Stevenson’s collections of air plants, and he looked at the screen. “You look like a cut-rate Bond villain. All you need is a big white cat.”

“Dr. No wore gloves. Blofeld had the cat.”

“You  _ would _ know that.”

“Look, Barry, you’re not exactly dressed to play Oddjob right now, so if you could just finish up back there—”

“I’m going, geez. Give a guy access to a swanky off-limits office so he can save his brother’s ass and this is the thanks I get,” Barry muttered as he left the office.

“Thank you!” Michael called after him, smiling when he received a grunt in reply. Barry always threw a fit when Michael asked for favors, but he knew that it was mostly for show and that Barry was secretly pleased to be looked to for help.

Michael glanced to his right, where the folder sat containing the drawings he’d had Lily do to distract her from missing Fiona. Of course he didn’t actually need them, but leaving them home where Lily might find out he hadn’t taken them wasn’t an option. Leaving them in the car had been, but somehow Michael hadn’t been able to do it.  _ Lying was how you made a living—it still sort of is—but the fact that you can’t lie to you daughter has to be…healthy or something. _

He reached over and ran a gloved thumb across the corner of one of the drawings which was sticking out of the bottom of the folder and smiled. An image of Lily’s crooked little grin was playing across his mind as the screen on the laptop started to blink in time with the sound of an antique telephone ringing, and Michael carefully pushed away all thoughts not directly related to the job at hand and re-checked the camera angle before hitting ‘Enter’ to answer the call.

Sam’s face came into view. “Sir.”

“Finley.”

“We’re in luck, sir. Mr. Paynton was able to make it this morning.” Sam turned the laptop on the Las Vegas end, panning past Nate and settling on Paynton and his two heavies with Jesse and Fiona standing behind them.

“Mr. Paynton, nice of you to join us.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Paynton growled.

“I’m led to understand, Mr. Paynton, that you and your associates have been leaning on our friend Mr. Westen,” Michael said smoothly. “Let me explain to you, in no uncertain terms, why that is a  _ very bad idea _ .”

 

~~~

 

“If you thought Paynton’s face was good when you threatened to sic Fi on his kneecaps with a tire iron, you should have seen him leaving. He actually  _ sidestepped _ her on the way out. It was amazing!”

Michael was on his way home with Nate on speakerphone. Having put Mr. Stevenson’s office back exactly the way it had been and adjusting the necessary security measures, he had sworn up and down that this was the last favor he’d ask from Barry for a while and gotten out of there before Barry could grumble at him too much. 

“He seemed more bark than bite to me, I’m not surprised. Too bad we won’t get to see the look on his face when he gets home and finds out about the flowers we sent his pregnant wife with the card signed ‘Finley, McBride, Rubio, Westen, and HM’. If that doesn’t send the ‘we mean business’ message, I don’t know what will.”

“Thanks, Mike. I’m pretty sure they’ll lay low from now on. I owe you one.”

“I’ll put it on your tab.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Nate drawled, exasperated. “You want to talk to anyone else?”

“Nah, I’m good. Will’s bringing them back tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, he had something on the books for tonight already. It’s cool, they can hang at my place the rest of the day and stay with me tonight. We’re going to take Jesse out to dinner as a thank you. He’s pretty great, Mike. You’d like him.”

“That seems to be the consensus.”

“Hey, bro?”

“Yeah?”

“When you get home, tell Mom I love her and give Lily a kiss from Uncle Nate, huh?”

Michael smiled. “I will.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

There was silence on the line for a moment, and then Nate said, “You’re a real pain in the ass.”

Michael was taken aback for a moment, not by the words, but by the steady, sincere tone in which Nate had said them. It took him a second to find his voice, but once he did, he replied, “So are you.”

 

~*~*~*~


	11. Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

As Michael entered Lily’s room to wake her up he caught the flicker of an eyelid squeezing shut. He continued to the curtains as usual, opening them and logging the position Lily was in as he did.  _ Why do I get the feeling I’m about to be ambushed?  _ He smiled to himself and sat on the edge of the bed where he was immediately pounced on by 32 pounds of little girl, wielding a stuffed hippo and grinning like she had just been given a pony for Christmas.

He caught her mid-pounce and said, “Oh, so we wanna play rough this morning, huh?” before taking them both to the ground. They tussled for a minute or so before Lily’s squeals brought Madeline down the hall.

“What in the—Oh, honestly, you two!”

Michael and Lily stopped the second Madeline showed up in the doorway and the tableau made an interesting picture. Michael was kneeling on the floor and had Lily suspended by one ankle. Lily had one of his belt loops in one hand and one of his thumbs in the other, and she was stretched out every which way like a starfish.

Michael recognized the look on his mother’s face—it was the  _ I should be mad at you right now but I’m trying really hard not to laugh _ look—and he figured he might as well tip her over the edge. “She started it!”

Madeline’s resolve failed and she burst out laughing. “I give up. I oughta—never mind. I give up.” She headed to the kitchen, still laughing.

_ Whoa, _ Michael thought.  _ Good save, Mom. _ He knew the whole speech by heart—it was ‘I give up. I oughta spank you both, but I give up.’ It wasn’t as if he and Nate hadn’t heard it enough times when they managed to get away with something because they had made their mom laugh. He knew if Lily heard it, though, she’d be under the bed in 1.3 seconds and they probably wouldn’t get her out until her thirty-eighth birthday. He brought his attention back to his little girl who was still dangling in the air in front of him and got her turned upright.

“Come on, Lily-girl, we need to get moving. We’re going to see Dr. Haig again today.”

Lily was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Do we have to?”

Michael took in the child standing before him. He could absolutely understand why Lily wouldn’t want to go see Brenda again—being forced to revisit the darkest places from your personal history, to unpack them and discuss them with a complete stranger? It was the same reason he had fought against it since life had brought him back to Miami where his mother could lean on him about it, and he was an  _ adult _ . It had to be doubly terrifying for his nearly-five-year-old. He sighed. He could make his own choices about how to deal with his past, but he was also prepared to deal with the consequences. But Lily? Michael was damned if he was going to let her live the way he did if he could help it—with one part of his brain blocked off and wrapped with yellow ‘Caution’ tape, a line of intricate alarms leading up to the door—and even though he didn’t love the way it had to be done, he was prepared to lay his reservations aside if it paved the way for his daughter to live without the weight he carried. He gently drew a finger down Lily’s nose. “Yeah, we do.”

“‘Kay.” 

“Thank you.”

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“Can—” She stopped and looked at the floor.

“Go ahead and ask, Lily-girl. What’s up?”

“Can Gramma come this time?”

Michael wasn’t exactly surprised by her request, but he had to admit that he was a little dented by it. “You want Gramma to take you this time?”

“No. You  _ and _ Gramma. Please?”

“Me  _ and  _ Gramma?” He repeated, and Lily nodded.  _ You say yes and you’re in for a whole heap of your business being blurted out indiscriminately by your mother,  _ he thought, but then he made the mistake of looking into his daughter’s hopeful eyes.  _ You say no and you’re the biggest asshole in the universe. _ “Okay. We’ll ask her.”

Lily hugged him. “Thank you.”

 

~~~

 

Madeline had said yes, of course. While Lily was brushing her teeth, Michael pulled his mother aside and said, “This is about Lily, okay? Not me, not Dad. Lily.”

“Michael,” she replied, “If Dr. Haig asks, I’ll answer. The fact that you and Lily share that kind of a history is a big part of what makes your bond with her as strong as it is. Don’t discount that.”

“Fine. Just don’t monopolize the conversation, okay?”

“Really? Do you really think you need to lecture me about this?”

“You have this habit of—” 

“Michael—” 

Lily had come down the hall then, effectively ending any argument that had been about to break out, and they had gotten on their way.

When they got to the door of Brenda’s office Michael shot Madeline one last warning glare and she glowered at him in return. Lily was walking between them, holding one of each of their hands, and thankfully missed this exchange of dirty looks because she was busy trying to slow their progress by purposefully trailing behind them.

Michael looked back at her and raised an eyebrow.

Lily quickly closed the gap.

“Thank you,” he said, and opened the door.

Rebecca, the receptionist, looked up from her work and smiled. “Hi, Lily!”

“Hi.”

“Go on in, she’s ready for you.”

The door to Brenda’s office was slightly ajar but Michael gave it a knock anyway before opening it.

“Hi there,” Brenda said. “Come on in.”

“Hi.” The crayons and paper were already on the floor and Lily went for them without hesitation.

“This must be Mrs. Westen,” Brenda said, smiling and extending a hand to Madeline. “Brenda Haig.”

“Maddie,” Madeline said as she shook it. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Well, why don’t you two have a seat and we’ll get on with it.”

Madeline sat in one corner of the sofa. Michael purposefully sat in the other, and she gave him a look out of the corner of her eye which he pretended not to see. Instead he focused on Lily’s drawing.

“Who’s that, Lily?” Brenda asked.

“Mama.”

Brenda looked pleased with this response, but followed up in Lily’s terms from the week before with, “Which one? This one, or the other one?”

Lily looked up, resolute. “The  _ only _ one.”

“Why ‘the only one’?”

“Because.”

Brenda re-worded her question. “Okay. Why is she different from the other one?”

“She teaches me stuff. An’ we do things together.”

“What kind of things?”

_ Shit. Lily, don’t say C4. DON’T SAY C4. _ Michael tried to telegraph the message into her head.

“We make stuff. We go to the beach sometimes. An’ look,” Lily shifted so Brenda could see her toenails, which Fiona had painted sunflower yellow before she left for Vegas. “She changes mine when she changes hers.”

“Wow, that is  _ very _ yellow! And you never did any of those things with the other one?”

“No.” Lily picked up her crayon again. “Everything I did made her mad.” Her little voice started to quiver. “Don’t know why. I wasn’t tryin’ to.”

“Of course you weren’t, Lily,” Brenda soothed. “What about—” But Brenda couldn’t get the whole question out. 

It was like a switch had flipped. The words suddenly started tumbling out of Lily in an unstoppable wave of wounded incomprehension. 

“Didn’t matter if I was quiet or if I went outside or stayed inside or was in my room or just not doin’ anything an’ sometimes even when I was  _ sleeping  _ an’ I tried hiding but that was worse an’ I tried helping but that didn’t work an’ I tried making her things an’ drawing her things but that didn’t work either an’ I don’t know why ‘cause I wasn’t  _ tryin’  _ to do anything but maybe try an’ make her happy an’ maybe make her  _ like  _ me some _. _ ” 

Lily stopped and took a breath, and Brenda was about to ask another question when the little girl started talking again. “If she had the stuff she was okay, but when her fix went away she always got real angry. One time she was doing her hair an’ I went past an’ I sneezed an’ she hit me with the thing she was doing her hair with. It burned.” The little girl’s hand automatically went to a spot on her ribs where Michael knew there was a scar. “One time they were yelling at each other an’ she threw a broken cup but it hit me instead of him. She was bad.” Lily’s little hand moved from her ribs to the scar on her lip. “He was...badder.”

Michael was holding his breath. Madeline’s eyes were wide and vaguely damp, and she was covering her mouth with one hand.

Brenda waited a few more seconds, and when she was sure Lily had finished she asked, “Your dad was worse?”

“ _ No! Not _ my dad!” Lily shouted, which startled them all. She pointed to Michael and said vehemently, “ _ He’s _ my dad,” glaring at Brenda like she was daring her to contradict the assertion.

_ Atta girl, _ Michael thought.  _ Get mad. You’re going to kick this, Lily-girl. Right in its fucking face. _

Startled by her own outburst Lily curled up in a ball, her voice a heartbroken wail. “I’m sorry!”

Michael scooped her up as she was and pulled her onto the sofa with him and Madeline, who had shifted over so she could get an arm around the child, too.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Lily,” Brenda said softly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t your fault.”

They sat quietly until Lily cried herself out—and got the hiccups. 

“Deep breaths, Lily,” Brenda urged. “It’ll help make those stop.”

The little girl obeyed, uncurling as she did and resting her head on Michael’s shoulder.

“Atta girl,” he said, attempting to kiss Lily’s forehead but just managing to get bumped in the nose when she hiccuped. 

They waited another minute or so for her to calm down a bit more, and when her hiccups seemed to be subsiding, Brenda asked, “Better?”

Lily nodded.

“Can I ask you another question?”

She sniffed. “What?”

“The same question I asked you about your mom, except I want to know why your dad is different than the other one this time.”

Lily looked at Brenda as though the answer should be completely obvious. “‘Cause he’s like me.”

_ And I was worried about Mom going there. _ Michael groaned internally.

“What do you mean?”

Lily shifted sideways and reached up, sliding a finger down Michael’s scars, then doing the same to her own.

Brenda looked at Michael and Madeline. “Could someone give me a little more context?”

Madeline looked at her son. “I’ll leave that up to Michael,” she said, but kindly.

Michael knew he was stuck. He cleared his throat and said, “My father and Lily’s…other one…had similar temperaments.” 

“Ah, mystery solved,” Brenda said. “I was wondering what that was about last week.”

“Yeah.” Michael, desperate for a distraction, grabbed a tissue from the box on the table next to him and put it over Lily’s nose. “Blow, please.”

Lily did, and Brenda pulled a wastebasket over for Michael.

“I sense a solid case of kindred spirits, here.” Brenda smiled as Lily flopped back against Michael’s chest, her arms and legs landing wherever, one of Michael’s hands coming to rest on her belly. Looking at Madeline, Brenda asked, “What do you think?”

“You have no idea.” Madeline looked at Lily and Michael fondly. 

“This is an incredibly fortuitous situation, Mr. Westen,” Brenda said. “For Lily  _ and _ for you. I’m guessing that shared experience was a big factor in solidifying the bond you have with each other.”

“I’d say that’s a fair assessment,” Michael replied, looking at his mother out of the corner of his eye.

“It will be beneficial to you both going forward as long as you can commit to keeping the lines of communication open. I think the two of you can learn a lot from each other, and heal some things, too, along the way.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Brenda smiled. “I’m glad.”

“Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s all that mean?”

“What I mean, Lily,” Brenda explained, “is that because you and your dad both had people in your lives who weren’t as nice to you as they should have been, that gives you something in common—something you share—and that can be helpful for making you both feel better. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“Well, if it doesn’t yet, it will someday. And that’s okay. Can I ask you one more thing?”

“What?”

“Why did you draw your mom instead of something else?”

“‘Cause she’s gone right now. She an’ Uncle Sam had to go back to Vegas to do a job with Uncle Nate ‘cause he’s a pest.”

Both Michael and Madeline laughed at Lily’s matter-of-factness.

“When is she coming back?” Brenda asked.

Lily looked up at Michael, who looked back and smiled. “Tonight.”

“Yes!” Lily threw her arms out wide in a gesture of excitement, narrowly missing Madeline as she did.

“Hey!” Madeline caught the wrist of the little arm that had nearly clobbered her and tugged Lily out of Michael’s lap and halfway into her own. “I know you’re excited, but that’s no reason to try to take my eye out.” She grinned and tickled Lily’s belly where her shirt had ridden up a little. 

Lily squeaked and squirmed her way around so that she was hugging Madeline, her tummy protected from her grandmother’s tricky fingers by virtue of it being plastered up against the front of her assailant.

Michael, who had nearly taken a tiny knee to the gut as Lily scrambled to escape Madeline’s tickle attack, rolled his eyes at his mother, reaching across and tugging Lily’s shirt back into place. “Yeah, Mama’s going to be home in plenty of time for us to figure out what we’re doing for your birthday, Lily-girl.”

Madeline raised an eyebrow at him, and he raised one back. Michael figured that if there was a good place to broach the birthday subject in case it turned out to be difficult territory it was with Brenda, and he was immediately glad he’d done it where he had, because Lily went completely still after he spoke.

They all watched her, waiting to see how she would react.

She stayed still for a few more seconds and then turned her head towards Michael. “What are we gonna do?”

“Whatever you want, Lily-girl.”

“I don’t wanna do what they did.”

Sensing an unpleasant story, Brenda asked, “What did they do, Lily?”

Lily looked at her and said, “Nothin’, until they remembered, an’ then they—” She stopped herself, looked at Michael and Madeline in turn, and then slipped off of Madeline’s lap and went to the armchair, climbing up into it next to Brenda and whispering in her ear.

Michael watched as Brenda and Lily whispered back and forth. He wondered what was making his little girl so secretive about this but decided that as long as she was telling  _ someone _ it was fine by him. His mother was having a hard time with it, though. Madeline was making that face she made at the end of crime programs on TV—concerned but impatient, like she was willing the characters to talk faster so she ‘could find out who the murderer was already’, except this time Michael suspected that she was willing her granddaughter to decide to share whatever it was she was conferring about with Brenda. He reached over and gave Madeline’s forearm a squeeze. She looked at him and tossed her head in the direction of the armchair, but Michael shook his head and she gave a resigned sigh.

Lily and Brenda seemed to have come to some sort of decision together, and Lily looked over at Michael and Madeline. “I’ll tell you, but it’ll make you sad, an’ I don’t wanna make you sad.”

“You are the only child on God’s green earth who would even think about that,” Madeline said.

“Actually,” Brenda replied, “I think you’d be surprised how often a reluctance to cause upset makes children reticent to share their darker emotions.”

Lily frowned at Brenda. “Can you use smaller words, please?”

Brenda laughed. “Sorry. I was telling Gramma that you’re not the only kiddo in the world who thinks about how other people feel and sometimes don’t say things you might want to say because of how you think they’ll react. That’s all.”

“Oh. ‘Kay.” Lily hopped down from the chair and went back to the sofa, squishing herself in between Michael and Madeline. She started fussing with the hem on her shorts as she said, “Last year they beat the snot outta me an’ locked me in the closet for a really long time.” 

They reached for her at the same time, but Madeline was quicker. Lily sighed and hugged Madeline’s neck, resting her head facing Michael, who traced a finger down the scar on her chin and asked, “Do you really think we’d do that to you, Lily-girl?”

Lily took hold of his finger before looking down and shaking her head. “No. Just got scared for a minute.” She chewed her lip. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, baby. We know you can’t help it sometimes.” Madeline kissed the top of Lily’s head.

“But I made you sad, an’ I didn’t want to.”

“And we know you couldn’t help that, either.”

“Lily,” Brenda said.

“Yeah?”

“Can I tell Daddy and Gramma what I told you?”

“‘Kay.”

Brenda looked at Michael and Madeline. “When she has that knee-jerk reaction to something I told her to take a deep breath, count to three, and really  _ think _ about what she’s scared of, and whether it’s because of something the other ones did, and if she  _ really  _ thinks she’ll get the same reaction from any of you. Can you help her remember to do that when you see it start to happen?”

“Sure,” Michael said. “Easy enough.”

“Thank you. Do either of you have any questions before we wrap up for today?”

Madeline raised an eyebrow at Michael. “I do. Where exactly did she pick up the phrase ‘beat the snot out of me’?” 

“That was Nate’s fault!”

 

~~~

 

At dinner on Tuesday night Fiona had still been complaining about the complete lack of explosions during the Paynton job, and Jesse decided that his ‘cold’ was definitely holding on and he  _ absolutely  _ couldn’t make it into the office on Wednesday. Nate claimed that one of the perks of being the boss was being able to play hooky with no questions asked, so the three of them decided a range day was in order. Sam opted to skip the outing in favor of taking his old SEAL buddy to lunch as a thank you for sourcing Jesse for them, but Fiona, Nate, and Jesse went out and ran through as much ammo as they could get hold of. 

As they were packing up Fiona had a thought. “Nate.”

“Yeah?”

“Is there anywhere around here that sells Airsoft?”

“There’s a huge sporting goods store on the way home if I take the freeway, yeah. Why?”

“We wanted to get Lily a .22 for her birthday, but she’s too little to handle it yet. Someone told me we might have more luck with Airsoft.”

Jesse slung his bag over his shoulder. “Who’s Lily?”

Fiona replied, “My daughter,” just as Nate said, “My niece.”

“She’s got a birthday coming up?” Nate asked. “I didn’t even think to ask when that was.”

“The twenty-seventh.”

“Oh wow, that soon, huh? I’ll have to send something back for her with you. It’ll never make it if I mail it.”

“She’d love that.” Fiona smiled.

Jesse looked Nate, obviously perplexed. “Wait. She’s your niece but you didn’t know when her birthday was?”

“It’s complicated,” Nate and Fiona said in unison.

“Yeah, I figured that.”

Fiona laughed. “It’s just easier if you accept it at face value.”

“That’s fair.” 

Jesse still looked as though he wanted to ask something, and Fiona was fairly certain she knew what it was. “Michael is her father.”

“Got it,” Jesse said with a nod. “How old?”

“Five on Saturday.”

“Airsoft is the way to go.” Jesse looked at Nate. “You thinking of the big store off of the 515?”

“Yeah. They have a whole wall, don’t they?”

“They do.”

Fiona shouldered her bag and grabbed a now-empty ammo can. “Let’s roll, boys.”

They walked out together, loading up the car and settling in for the drive. They had taken Nate’s car and Jesse very chivalrously let Fiona ride shotgun, sitting behind her. Fiona could see his face in the side mirror if she tilted her head just so. The mention of Lily had clearly surprised him, and the admission that Lily was Fiona and Michael’s had definitely taken the wind out of his sails.  _ Sorry, Jesse, _ she thought.  _ It would never have worked, anyway. Even before Lily, Michael had too much of me. More than I think I knew. _ She watched the road ahead of them, the lines disappearing beneath the car as they went. It was soothing, and she was starting to nod off when Nate changed lanes. They exited the freeway and took a left, ending up in an enormous parking lot attached to a doubly enormous hunting and outdoors store. 

As they walked to the store entrance Jesse was following behind, still quiet. Feeling a little guilty, Fiona turned to him and said, “It sounds like you know your way around this place. Show me this fabled wall of Airsoft.”

That at least got Jesse to smile, and he led them through a maze of fishing gear, sleeping bags, and saddlery and came to a stop in front of a massive display of air rifles, air pistols, and BB guns. He pointed to the bottom right corner of a wall and said, “That’s what you’re after. Grip’s going to be a little big for her for a while, but the recoil is nonexistent, especially if Mom and Dad are helping.”

“Perfect,” Fiona said, and knelt down to see what was on offer.

Nate waived Jesse over. “Here.” He handed his phone across, a selfie he had taken with Lily on the screen. “That’s who we’re shopping for.”

“Wow. She looks just like you, Fi.”

Fiona laughed. “Funny thing about that.” She and Nate shared a subtle knowing glance as she stood up, box of the chosen Airsoft model in hand. “All right, show me what else she’s going to need with this thing and let’s get out of here.”

After a short foray into Airsoft accessories and a prolonged detour through the firearms and ammunition section, they finally made it to the front of the store to check out. Nate wandered to the next end-cap which had a colorful display of Native American art and crafts and was looking at a particular piece, which he took off of its hook and showed Fiona. “What do you think?”

“Perfect idea, wrong color,” she said. “Lily’s not a pink girl. Is there a green one?”

 

~~~

 

It was a quarter past eleven when Lily peeked into the living room. “Daddy?”

Michael had been zoned out watching a repeat of the news, and he jumped a little. “What are you doing up, Lily-girl?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“C’mere.” Lily went over to the sofa and Michael pulled her up with him. “What’s the matter?”

Lily had her hippo with her, and she toyed with the tulle on its tutu, causing some glitter to fall onto Michael’s shirt. “Keep thinking I hear her come home, but then she doesn’t.”

“Might as well stay out here with me, then,” Michael said as he pulled the throw blanket off the back of the couch and tucked it around her. Fiona had called from the municipal airport when they landed at about ten-thirty, so he knew she would be walking in the door any minute now and there wasn’t much point trying to persuade Lily to go back to bed just to have her hear her mother come in as soon as she got settled. 

Lily snuggled closer under the blanket. “Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

Her voice had taken on that drowsy tone, the one she got when she was losing the battle against sleep. “I missed her.”

“I know you did.”

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’mma stay ‘wake ‘til she gets here.”

“Okay.” He reached for the TV remote and switched the set off, catching a glimpse of his daughter struggling to keep her eyes open as he did. He smiled to himself and tightened his hold on her, starting to rock gently side to side.

“Daddy?” she said, so softly he almost missed it.

“Hmm?”

No response. 

He smiled a little wider and kept the rocking motion going for a few minutes, feeling the little body in his lap relax bit by bit, until he knew she was asleep. 

Not too long after he heard the Saab pull up, and a couple of minutes after that the back door opened and Fiona came in as quietly as she could, laden as she was with luggage. She saw Michael and the bundle in his arms, and Michael knew he didn’t really need to tell her, but he made a shushing motion anyway.

Fiona put her bags down and went to the sofa, curling up beside them and resting her head on Michael’s shoulder. “How long has she been asleep?” she whispered.

“About ten minutes. She missed you.”

“I missed her.” She looked up at Michael. “And you.”

“Let me get her back in bed. I’ll be in after that.”

Fiona replied with a kiss.

 

~*~*~*~


	12. Thursday, June 25th, 2009

“Hey, Maddie?” Sam said as the two of them turned into one of the refrigerated aisles at the grocery store. “I need you to get Lily out of the house tomorrow afternoon. Can you do that for me?”

“Why tomorrow afternoon, exactly?” Madeline smiled. She knew whatever it was that Sam had up his sleeve had to do with Lily’s birthday.

“Because you’re going to have to keep her out of the back yard until Saturday morning.” He winked.

“Do I need to be concerned for my landscaping?”

“Such trust! Honestly. I blow the front off your house  _ once _ and I hear about it for the rest of my life.” He tossed a pack of bacon into the shopping cart with a theatrical huff.

Madeline pulled the bacon out and replaced it with a pack of turkey bacon, and when Sam made a face she said, “You want to make it to Lily’s  _ next _ birthday?”

“Oh, we need ice cream.”

“We’ll get it on the way out. What happened with you last night, anyway? Michael said you didn’t come back with Fiona, but there you were on the couch this morning.”

“I went back to Ro’s to see if maybe she’d cooled down some, but judging by the fact that my stuff was boxed up and outside the front door I think that ship has sailed. If I’m honest, it’s a relief.”

Madeline opened a carton of eggs and inspected them one by one for cracks. “What the hell was up her craw, anyway?”

“She was jealous of Lily.”

“What?”

“Yeah. She started getting annoyed that I was spending so much time with you guys. Kind of a red flag, really. I mean, who gets mad at someone for wanting to help out a little kid? Especially one in Lily’s situation.”

The eggs went into the cart. “‘Good riddance to bad rubbish’ if you ask me,” Madeline grumbled, following up more gently with, “I’m glad you’re finished with her.” 

“Yeah.” Sam looked at Madeline out of the corner of his eye as he started pulling blueberry yogurts off of a shelf. He could read any of a number of things into the look on her face and the tone of her voice when she had said she was glad he and Rosanna were splitsville, but the one thing he found himself really wanting to read into it he knew he shouldn’t. He gave himself a mental thump on the back of the head and dumped an armful of yogurts into the cart.

“Gee, do you think that’s enough?” Madeline asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Sam cocked his head to one side and took a good look at the pile of yogurt cups, then tossed four more into the cart. “Yep.”

She rolled her eyes and smiled, bumping his shoulder with her own as she started towards the next aisle.

He stopped himself from bumping her back.  _ Get a hold of yourself, Axe. Pretty sure there’s a commandment about ‘thou shall not covet thy best friend’s mother.’ _

 

~~~

 

Michael walked in the back door and found Fiona kneeling on the kitchen counter putting a box on one of the top shelves in a cabinet. He took in the view and said, “Not that I’m complaining…”

Fiona closed the cabinet and turned her head towards him. Keeping her voice low, she said, “She’ll never find it up there.”

“What is ‘it’, exactly?”

“Lily’s birthday present.” Fiona smiled slyly.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to be a bit more specific?”

“Nope.”

Michael pulled a small rectangular box out of his back pocket. “Well, that’s a shame, because I know I told you I’d show you this when I picked it up, but if you’re not going to play fair I guess I’ll just hide it and we’ll forget about it until Saturday.”

“Okay. Here, I’ll put it up for you.” Fiona extended a hand and gave him her best innocent face.

Michael snorted a laugh. “You wish. What’s in the damn box, Fi?”

“What’s in  _ yours _ ?”

“I asked you first.”

Fiona rolled her eyes and pulled her box down, peeking towards the hallway before sitting on the counter. “Keep it down. She’s very busily building a magnetic tile castle in her room, but who knows how long that will last?” 

She handed Michael the plain cardboard box. He opened the top flaps and looked inside, moving some packing material to one side, and then breaking into a huge grin. “I knew you’d figure out a workaround.”

“It’s the most compact model they make, and I have it on authority that the recoil is manageable for even the smallest shooters if they have help.”

Michael handed the box back. “She’s going to lose her little mind. You know she’s had an eye on your Walther since day one, right?”

Fiona thought for a moment. “I could always re-paint the slide silver when I take that stupid orange tip off, but I’ll figure it out later.  _ What’s in your box? _ ”

He handed it over. “You can see why I had to have it done up special.”

She smiled when she saw what was inside.

“Look at the back.”

Fiona did, and immediately looked up at him, misty-eyed. “Michael, it’s perfect.”

 

~~~

 

Lily was anxious. It seemed like every time she went into a room where any of the grown-ups were they immediately stopped talking, like they were keeping secrets. She tried to remember to do what Brenda told her—to stop and breathe and count and think—but sometimes she forgot, and because the abrupt silences suddenly seemed to be happening  _ all the time _ , the cumulative effect of it was getting overwhelming.

She was lying on her stomach on the floor, her magnetic tile castle abandoned next to her, half finished. Her coloring supplies were close at hand but she didn’t much feel like playing with those, either. Pulling her stuffed hippo over, she turned it into a pillow and sighed.  _ Why are they keeping secrets? _ She took a breath and let it out slowly.  _ One…two…three…They’re not gonna do anything mean to you. They’re not. There’s gotta be another reason they’re being so weird. _

Her train of thought was interrupted by Sam wandering down the hall and leaning in her door frame. “What’re you up to, squirt?”

“Nothin’.”

“I’m going to watch the ballgame, probably have a snack. You want to come out with me for a while?”

“No, thanks.”

Sam looked at her for a moment. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Lily.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

She turned her face away from him and re-settled on her hippo-pillow. “Nothin’.”

“Having a hard time believing you, squirt.” Sam walked into the room and sat down on the floor with a grunt, resting his back against the bed. “Talk to me.”

Lily sighed and turned her head back towards Sam. He looked worried and that didn’t really make her feel any better about asking, but she knew he wouldn’t let her get away with  _ not _ asking now that he knew  _ she  _ was worried about something, so she decided it was better just to get it over with. “Why are you all keeping secrets?”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time I go in where you guys are you stop talking.” 

He looked confused for a second, but then a smile crept across his face. “Uh-oh,” he said. “You caught us. You’re right, we’re keeping secrets.”

Lily sat up with a jolt. Her palms went tingly and the butterflies started to flutter in her stomach. “Why? What did I do? What’s gonna happen?”

“Lily, it’s okay.”

“No it’s not!”

“Lily—” Sam reached over for her.

She pulled back. The butterflies had intensified a hundredfold and the tears had started. Lily was overwhelmed by the sudden need to run, to get somewhere no one could find her, but she would have to get past Sam to get out of the room or even underneath the bed—she was trapped. 

“Breathe, Lily,” Sam murmured.

She couldn’t. Everything was sharp and bright and it felt like the room was somehow getting smaller. “But  _ why _ ?”

“Because it’s almost your birthday, squirt. We’ve got some surprises for you, that’s all. You didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing bad’s going to happen.”

“Last year it did!” Lily wailed, dodging out of the way as Sam reached for her again, pressing herself as hard as she could against the side of the dresser.

“I know,” he said softly. “Daddy told me and Mama all about it. I want you to try to do what Brenda said you should do when you get scared, can you do that for me?”

“I tried! It’s not working!”

“Just breathe, baby.”

Lily could have sworn she was choking, but she still somehow managed to get some air into her lungs.

“Now let it out slow.”

She did. 

“There you go. Do it again.”

Lily felt the choking sensation start to ease, and the room slowly expanded back towards its usual size as Sam talked her through a few more breaths. When her breathing was easier he fell silent and Lily kept the slow breaths up on her own for a little longer, waiting for everything to feel normal again. She noticed that her shoulder hurt where it was still wedged against the dresser and she shifted a little, relieving the pressure. Then she rubbed her eyes and leaned her head on the wall next to her, looking at the carpet.

“Better?” Sam asked.

She shrugged.

“Okay. Look at me, squirt.”

Lily shook her head, shutting her eyes tight. She could tell by the tone of Sam’s voice that he was sad, and she hated it when any of them got sad because of her.

“Please?”

It took every ounce of resolve she had left, but she took one more deep breath and looked up, meeting his eyes.

“It’s all fun stuff, Lily.” He held an arm out towards her—not reaching this time, just inviting. “We didn’t want to spoil the surprise too early, that’s all. You’ll like it, honest.”

Those eyes had never lied to her, Lily knew that. She pushed herself away from the wall and crawled over into Sam’s lap. His arms closed around her, cocooning her in the familiar—the faint scratchiness of his linen shirt, the rhythm of his breathing, his warmth. “Uncle Sam?”

“Yeah?” 

She whispered, “I believe you.”

“I’m glad.”

They sat for a minute or so, just existing in each other’s space, until Lily’s almost-five-year-old side took over and asked, “What are we gonna have for a snack?”

Sam laughed and heaved himself up off the floor with Lily in his arms and started walking towards the living room. “Whatever you want, baby.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “Uncle Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Love you.”

He tilted his head down and kissed her forehead. “Love you back.”

 

~*~*~*~


	13. Friday, June 26th, 2009

When Friday afternoon rolled around, Madeline packed Michael and Fiona off to the beach with Lily and a picnic and instructions not to be back before dark. 

She could hear Sam working outside—he had been at it for a few hours already. Curious as she was, she almost didn’t want to know what he was creating out there before Lily found out, too.  _ Whatever it is, it’ll be good, _ she thought. She put a roll of wrapping paper back in the hall closet and wandered to the living room, lighting a cigarette and picking up her paperback from the coffee table, but her interest in the story only lasted about a page and a half. The racket from the back yard was constant, and her mind wasn’t on the words on the page, anyway—it was outside with Sam. Shaking her head to try to refocus herself, she forced her eyes back to the book. When another half a page went past without her really registering what she was reading, she gave up and put the book down. Taking a heavy drag of her cigarette, she tilted her head back and blew the smoke up at the ceiling. 

_ Where did this come from, anyway? He’s been around for a couple of years now and you’ve never really thought about him like this before. What changed? _

The most immediately obvious change was Lily. It wasn’t that Sam was necessarily different as a result of her coming into their lives, but he was definitely more...open? That was almost it, but not quite. Madeline knew he had a gentle side, but she’d usually seen it applied to his plethora of girlfriends—it was a romantic gentle. A sexy gentle. It retained a spark of mischief, of daring, of, well, randiness. The thought made her smirk. The gentleness Sam employed with Lily, though, was more in line with the way you’d try to coax a frightened kitten out from behind a piece of furniture, which was a fairly apt description of the little girl sometimes. The fact that it came to him so naturally, though—considering that, as far as Madeline knew, there hadn’t been that many children in his life—was surprising. Then again, she also knew that Sam could turn on a dime and blast the ever-loving crap out of anyone who threatened their hodge-podge little family, though in her mind that really just highlighted the contrast to his behavior with Lily. Madeline knew that the way Sam engaged with Lily was absolutely pushing her in his direction. After Frank, it practically made her melt to see a man be so unerringly nurturing towards a child. 

_ Hell, if you’d waited, made better choices, your boys could have had that too, you know. _ She sighed. At least she knew that Michael had a good model in Sam, and her son was doing pretty darned well on his own, all things considered.  _ He grew up with the ‘Don’t’, and now that he’s got that little girl, he’s got the ‘Do’ on his side, backing him up. _

Sam had always been a sort of hybrid best-friend-and-mentor to Michael, and that was another thing she was…falling for. There was no other word for it. Madeline knew that this was a dangerously awkward can of worms to open, but the feeling had been persistently increasing since it appeared shortly after Lily did, and it was getting to the point that simply trying to ignore it just wasn’t working anymore. And it wasn’t as though it was a one-sided thing—at least, it didn’t appear to be. Sam had been giving off subtle signals lately, and though he seemed to reel himself back into line when he noticed himself doing it, the fact that remained that it kept happening. 

_ It’s nice to be noticed, _ she thought. _ And it’s nicer when it’s by someone who makes you want to do something about it. _

It had been years since Madeline had felt this way about anybody. Wasn’t it about time she got to have something special—some _ one _ special—in her life? And how lucky was it that Sam already knew the ins and outs of the Westen family history, and how to navigate the often precarious terrain that was her’s and Michael’s relationship? Michael. That was going to be tricky. Possibly too tricky.

_ You might as well forget it. Michael would have a fit! _

There was a clatter from outside, followed by a short string of shouting which Madeline imagined was probably giving the air in the yard a distinctly blue tinge. 

_ The hell with it, _ she thought. Stamping out her cigarette, she stood up, snagged two beers from the fridge and went out the back door.

Sam was standing next to Lily’s favorite tree, hammer in hand, staring daggers at a little wooden structure on the ground. When he heard the door and saw Madeline headed towards him he heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank  _ god _ . I think I need to walk away from this for a while.” He took the beer she offered him, downing half of it in one go.

“It sounded like you might need to cool off,” she said. “In more ways than one. What happened?”

“Nothing major. I had the thing placed and knocked it down when I reached for a nail.” He held the beer bottle to his forehead. “It’s fine, I’m just boiling.” 

“Why didn’t you come in, knucklehead? When was the last time you had anything to drink?”

“Dunno, a while ago. Guess I just got caught up in what I was doing.”

He didn’t face her as he spoke, just looked shiftily off to one side.  _ Hmm, _ Madeline thought, but let it be for the moment. Instead she looked at the tree. “It’s looking great. I’m not sure what this is supposed to be, though.” She nudged the thing on the ground which had been the source of Sam’s frustration with the toe of her shoe.

“It’s a little house for her hippo. I don’t know, I just sort of thought it should have a place, too.”

Madeline smiled and shook her head. “You’re something else, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” 

Sam returned the smile, and maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but Madeline was sure there was a glint in his eyes that spoke to something more. For the second time that afternoon, she thought,  _ The hell with it, _ and hooked a finger in the pouch on his tool belt, giving it a gentle tug in her direction. She met with resistance, however.

“Mad,” he said huskily.

“That’s me.”

“Have you thought about this?”

“Have you?”

Sam looked away from her, running a hand through his hair. “Only every waking minute, but…”

Madeline moved around in front of him. “But what?” 

“It’s…” He huffed a laugh. “Mike’ll kill me.”

“He’ll have to get through me, first.” She smirked, tugging on his tool belt a little harder this time.

“Mad.”

She let go of the pouch, sighing internally.  _ Well, at least he’s loyal. _

Sam seemed to pick up on what she was thinking and said, “No, it’s not—no. Trust me, it’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just, you know, there’s Mike and you know that’s kind of a big deal, and besides that I’ve been working out here, and it’s hot, and—” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, the Michael problem is going to be what it’s going to be, but as for the other issue there’s this thing called a shower, and as it happens there are  _ two _ of them to choose from in that house behind you.”

Sam cast a glance towards the house, then turned back to her with a sly grin. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Give me an hour or so to finish up out here first?”

“Of course.” She reached out again, and this time when she tugged on his belt he came willingly, kissing her sweetly.

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“I hope you mean with this,” Madeline teased and motioned towards Sam’s project.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, darlin’,” Sam drawled, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her in for another kiss. “Because once this is finished, I intend to take my time with you.”

 

~~~

 

A few hours later when Fiona walked in the front door carrying a very tired Lily, she found Sam and Madeline curled up cozily together on the sofa. Sam avoided Fiona’s gaze and Madeline gave her a self-satisfied smirk. Looking at the pair on the couch, Fiona raised an eyebrow. “Michael’s right behind us, he’s just getting some sand out of the car. You know, in case you two plan to jump apart like embarrassed teenagers when he comes in.”

Ignoring the dig, Sam asked, “You have a good time, squirt?”

Lily nodded sleepily and said, “Uh-huh.”

“Did you leave any shells there, or did you bring them all home?”

“Wasn’t any good ones.”

“I’ll tell you what she did bring home,” Fiona said fondly. “Enough sand to give the Sahara a run for its money.” She kissed Lily’s cheek. “Come on, you. Bathtime.”

“‘Kay.” Lily laid her head down on Fiona’s shoulder as they went down the hall.

“Do you think that was approval or indifference?” Madeline asked Sam once the girls were gone.

“From Fi? It could have been either. Or both. Take your pick.” 

The back door opened and Michael walked in, muttering to no one in particular. “And I thought the glitter was bad. The kid’s a freaking sand magnet.”

They heard him washing his hands and then he walked towards the living room, stopping when he saw Sam and his mother together on the sofa. He carefully schooled his face blank, but Sam knew from experience that there had been a split-second of disbelief. If he was honest with himself, he felt guilty for not having spoken to Michael first about this thing with Madeline—though, to be fair, he hadn’t been sure that his feelings were reciprocated until that afternoon—but things hadn’t panned out that way, and now here they were. “Funny, that’s more or less what Fi said when they came in. It must just be you two, Mike. I don’t have that problem when I take her.”

“Maybe,” Michael said, studying their faces, clearly waiting for one of them to say something about the obviously-more-than-friendly position in which he had found them.

“You keep making that face and it’ll stick that way,” Madeline quipped. When Michael didn’t respond, she asked, “Did you see what Sam did to Lily’s tree?”

“I did. It looks great.” 

He was keeping his voice even—it was the tone he used in interrogations. Sam knew he’d better lay everything out on the table. “Look, Mike, if you had been here I’d have talked to you first. But you weren’t, and things just…happened.”

“You couldn’t have waited a few hours?” Michael asked coldly.

“If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me,” Madeline said. “I made the first move.”

Michael’s eyes flicked to his mother’s, and Sam watched as they stared each other down. It went on for so long he thought he maybe ought to say something, but then thought better of it _. _

Finally, Michael sighed and dragged a hand down his face, crossing his arms. “I’m not—well, okay, yeah, I’m mad.”

“We’re grownups, Michael,” Madeline said. “I don’t tell you how to live your life.”

Michael immediately shot back with, “That’s  _ all _ you do!”

Sam would never say it out loud, but to a certain level Michael had a point. He waited to see how Madeline would react to her son’s accusation.

She looked at Michael for a moment—it was clear the remark had stung—but instead of firing back at him, Sam felt her slump back against him a little bit as she said, “It’s because I care about you, honey.”

Michael threw his arms out in a gesture of  _ just what do you think I’m doing? _

Sam felt Madeline tense up again. “Hey,” he said, rubbing her arm. “He’s doing exactly what he should do, Mad. He’s protecting you.” He looked at Michael. “I know this wasn’t an ideal way to break the news. I’m sorry, Mike, but this is what it is. I know you’re not thrilled—” Michael snorted and gave Sam a look. “I know. But I know that  _ you _ know I would never deliberately hurt anyone in this family.” 

Michael gave them one last long, hard look before saying, “I just hope the two of you know what you’re doing,” and walking down the hall, closing the door to Nate’s room behind himself.

“That went well,” Madeline said caustically.

“He’ll come around,” Sam said, hoping his voice sounded positive. He knew Michael was going to be sore about this for a while. He’d have to have a word with him alone, and sooner rather than later, but not right now. “Maybe I should sleep out here tonight.”

“Like hell you will.”

 

~~~

 

When Fiona came into Nate’s room after settling Lily in for the night, she found Michael lying on his side on top of the bed covers facing away from her. The tension in his shoulders was obvious, and she knew exactly what he was worked up about. As she slid into the bed he sat up.

“Everyone down for the night?”

“Yes.” 

She watched him leave the room and close the door behind himself, heard him cross the hall, heard the shower come on. She hoped that he would get most of his brooding done while he was in there, but she knew better than to hold her breath on that front. 

While Fiona wasn’t surprised that Sam and Madeline would choose to attempt a relationship with each other—in fact, the phrase ‘about time, too,’ had run through her head—she could certainly see things from Michael’s point of view. His mother and his best friend? It put him in an awkward position, and while it wasn’t exactly a setback, it was definitely a hiccup. For someone who had lived the majority of his adult life entrenched in a profession that required him to be able to deal with rapidly changing situations, he seemed monumentally incapable of applying those skills to his own kin. 

_ It’s always different with family, _ Fiona thought.  _ Family...Sam and I were his family of necessity after the burn. We’ve chosen to stick around. _

She thought about the inevitable addition of Madeline and Nate, and now the unexpected but surprisingly natural addition of Lily. Fiona had to smile. That little girl was smoothing out Michael’s rough edges whether he liked it or not—whether he  _ knew _ it or not—but without dulling the things that made him…him. If anything, those were getting even sharper. Lily was another name on the list of people for whom he felt responsible, and she was far and away the one who needed him the most.

Fiona had been watching Michael closely the entire time the three of them had been at the beach that evening. She knew his habits, knew how he kept one eye on the world while the other was fixed squarely on what he was doing. There was no doubt in her mind that, while he might have been towing Lily around in the water or standing with her in the shallows helping her to jump over the waves when they rolled in, he had cataloged every individual on that beach and come up with at least three plans to get them safely out of there if something suddenly went haywire. 

_ No, you can’t really question his commitment to Lily anymore. _

And Lily? Lily was acting exactly like you would expect an almost-five-year-old to act. Having been starved for it all of her short life she was constantly seeking the comfort of a gentle touch, and sometimes couldn’t seem to decide which one of them to get it from and ended up draped across them both in some ridiculous position which forced Michael and Fiona into each other’s space. Obviously physical contact wasn’t new territory for them, but adding Lily to the mix just served to drive home the fact that they were bound to her, and thereby to each other. 

Fiona cast her mind back to that morning years ago when Michael disappeared from her life without a trace. The memory still carried a searing, cutting pain, as though someone had sliced her in half at the waist with a perfectly sharpened blade. She knew the pattern of this memory by heart; after the pain came the anger, then the sorrow, then the dull ache. 

She sat with that for a moment before running through a mental collage of the times their paths had crossed in between Michael’s initial disappearance and Miami, none of which had done anything to heal the rift. If anything, they had widened it. The odd job here and there across Europe, the two of them running into each other by mistake or by design, it was hard to know. The nights afterwards wherever they could find a place to hole up. And then the final night—the one that got ugly, the one that Fiona buried even deeper than the memory of Michael’s first disappearing act. It always started the cycle of the pain, anger, sorrow, and dull aching all over again, and she acknowledged that once more before fast-forwarding to the call. The only words she had registered when the gravelly male voice had come down the line had been  _ Michael Westen…Miami…Burn _ , but somehow, instead of hanging up and going on with her life like she had promised herself she would if he ever resurfaced, she dropped everything and had been halfway to Florida before she even realized what she was doing. 

She hadn’t exactly intended to stay, but once she was there, once she had seen him again, she hadn’t been able to drag herself away. The path to where they were now hadn’t been easy. It had been slow, it had been angry, it had been sad, it had been lonely, it had been painful, and it had been confusing as all get out. But it had also been exciting, joyous, passionate, liberating, and, in a weird sort of way, healing. She and Michael had learned each other again, and learned  _ from _ each other. They had laughed with each other, fought with each other, consoled each other.

They had loved each other.

Fiona looked over at the empty space in the bed next to her. She could still see the indentation Michael’s body had left, but for the first time in years she knew in her heart that it wasn’t truly empty. The emptiness was only temporary. It was time to let go of the deepest fear she pretended not to harbor. 

_ He’s not going to disappear on you again. _

The shower turned off, and after some rattling around Michael returned, resuming the position Fiona had found him in earlier. She slid over behind him, wrapping an arm around him, setting her palm flat on his chest. He brought a hand up and rested it on top of hers.

“Michael?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

No surprises there. “You don’t have to talk, but can you listen for a minute?” 

A weary breath served as a response. 

“I’m surprised it hadn’t happened already, honestly. I know that what you’re really concerned about is them hurting each other, but it’s going to be what it’s going to be. You can’t control how they live their lives, even in the name of protecting them.” She laced their fingers together and kissed his shoulder blade. “I know it’s awkward—this is your mother and your best friend. I mean, if I were to come home and find out that  _ you’d _ taken up with  _ my  _ mother, my first reaction  would probably be to carve you up like a Christmas turkey and distribute pieces of you in at least nine different counties. Actually,” she said, snuggling up a little closer, “that’s exactly what would happen if I ever found out I was ‘sharing’ you. I quite like having you all to myself.” She could feel him starting to relax. “I’m not going to tell you how to handle the situation, but I have a request.”

“What?”

“Just don’t let it ruin tomorrow. Lily deserves a proper birthday.”

Michael let go of her hand and rolled over to face her, pulling her up against him. “I won’t ruin it for her.” He buried his face in Fiona’s hair. “Fi?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

Fiona took a breath. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

She pulled back just enough to be able to see his eyes in the ambient light. “I think this family thing is going to work.”

 

~*~*~*~


	14. Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Lily woke up before anyone came into her room on Saturday morning. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, listening for the telltale sounds of activity in other parts of the house, but it was quiet.  _ Must be early, _ she thought. Deciding she didn’t really want to get up yet anyway, she closed her eyes again and wriggled into a more comfortable position, pulling the covers up just below her nose. She felt around for her hippo under the sheets but came up empty-handed. Sighing, she sat up and looked around the top of the bed. Nothing. She peered over the side at the floor. No hippo there, either.

_ But she was here last night. _

She got out of bed and looked underneath it, but all she found was a sizeable collection of dust bunnies. She was starting to worry a little now and began to search the room. She checked under the dresser, on top of the dresser, in all of the dresser drawers, in the closet, all the corners, and behind the door, but her hippo was nowhere to be found. Lily started to think of other places she could have left her.

_ I had her on the sofa after dinner.  _

She scurried out and gave the living room a thorough search to no avail. She tried the kitchen, the dining room, the hallway and the hall closet, even the bathroom.

_ I  _ know _ I had her when I went to bed. I did!  _ Lily thought really hard.  _ Maybe Mama took her when she left after I fell asleep? _ She walked to the door to Nate’s room and stopped just outside. It was open just enough for her to see the bed, and she could see Michael and Fiona, but couldn’t tell if her hippo was up there with them.

“Mama?” she said quietly. There was movement from one side of the bed but neither Fiona nor Michael responded. She tried a little louder. “Mama?”

Fiona’s head came up. “What’s up, Lily-girl?” she asked groggily.

“Do you have my hippo?”

There was a pause. “No, she’s not in here.”

Lily didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t as if her hippo could have walked away on her own. She had to be  _ somewhere _ , but Lily had looked everywhere she could think of. 

_ Where is she? _

Sam and Madeline had been listening in on the activity in the hall from Madeline’s room. 

Madeline looked over at Sam, who was wearing a self-satisfied smirk. “You  _ didn’t. _ ”

“Shh, I’ve got this.” Sam rolled out of bed and went to the door, opening it to find Lily standing in the hallway getting increasingly distraught. “What’s going on, squirt?”

“I can’t find my hippo!”

Sam cringed a little at the panic in her voice.  _ Okay, not your best idea, Axe, _ he chided himself. “Did you look outside?”

“I didn’t take her outside! I had her in bed last night!”

“Try checking outside anyway,” he said gently.

“But—”

“Come on, I’ll go with you.” He picked her up and headed for the back door.

Michael, Fiona, and Madeline were up now and they followed behind, having figured out what Sam was up to.

“I’m going to kill him,” Madeline whispered.

“Not if I get to him first,” Fiona whispered back.

Sam opened the back door and took Lily out into the yard, watching her eyes go wide.

There, in Lily’s favorite tree, was her hippo, sitting in the little hippo-house Sam had built for her. There was a platform with a rail most of the way around the tree trunk about six feet off the ground with a rope ladder to get up to it. A swing hung from one branch. There was an oilcloth hammock suspended from the underside of the platform, and between two other branches was bolted a portion of a set of monkey bars Sam had gotten from a nearby elementary school that was replacing its play structure. The other half he had used to make a slanted ladder up to the platform on the other side of the tree. The finishing touch, which had come from the same school’s scrap heap, was a fireman’s pole, accessible via another, smaller rope ladder from the platform up to a higher branch. 

“Well? What do you think, squirt?”

“How did she get  _ out here?! _ ”

“Maybe she flew.” Lily gave him the look that said  _ are you really that silly? _ and Sam laughed. “Are you going to go try it out or what?”

“Did you make it?”

“You’re darn skippy I did.” Lily just looked at him, speechless, so he kissed her nose and said, “Happy birthday, Lily.”

Lily hugged him hard.

Sam returned the hug for a long minute, then attempted to put Lily down so she could go explore her new hideout, but stopped halfway when she said, “Wait! No shoes.”

Michael approached with a pair of Lily’s shoes. Working them onto her feet, he rolled his eyes at his best friend, jovially saying, “Geez, Uncle Sam. We have all of five lousy rules around here—can’t you remember anything?”

Sam set Lily down and folded his arms, returning the eye roll with a grin. “Well,  _ excuse  _ me!”

After Lily shot off towards the tree Michael closed the gap between himself and Sam, squaring off in front of him and looking him in the eyes. Voice low, he said, “Just treat my mother right. That’s all I ask.”

“I have no intention of doing otherwise,” Sam replied. 

Michael nodded.

“Are we good?”

Michael nodded again. “Yeah. We’re good.”

They all watched Lily scale the rope ladder like she had been born doing it. The first place she went was to her hippo’s little house, where she grabbed the stuffed animal and squished it like she hadn’t seen it in a hundred years. Madeline had moved to stand on Sam’s left and Fiona on his right, and they each thwacked him on the shoulder closest to them.

“Ow!”

“What made you think hiding her hippo was a good idea?” Madeline hissed.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry! In hindsight, it was a terrible idea.”

“You could say that again,” Madeline said, but she leaned against his side and Sam knew he was forgiven.

Michael, ever watchful, was hanging out close to the tree now, keeping an eye on Lily as she inspected Sam’s creation, and Fiona walked over to join him.

Madeline watched Lily climb up the second ladder to the highest point of the structure clutching her hippo in the crook of her elbow. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a broken arm in our near future?”

Sam slipped an arm around Madeline’s waist. “She’ll be fine.”

“It really is incredible, Sam,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“She deserves it.”

“You’re damn right she does.”

 

~~~

 

Michael had Lily’s present in his pocket. It had been there all morning. They had let Lily explore her tree for about ten minutes before mentioning that maybe she ought to get out of her pajamas and into actual clothes, but once she had done that she was back up the tree again. She was still out there, and it was almost noon. Michael watched through the kitchen window. Fiona was sitting on the swing and Lily was up and down and in and out and all over the place, exactly as she should be, her hippo in its little house overseeing the activity. Madeline had taken Lily a half a peanut butter sandwich at one point rather than calling her in to eat breakfast because,  _ It’s her damn birthday, and playing outside is a marked improvement over being locked in a closet. _ Michael couldn’t argue.

Sam wandered over and pulled a beer out of the fridge. When Michael raised an eyebrow at him he said, “What? It’s lunchtime.”

Michael just shook his head and looked back out the window.

“She still going out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. I mean, I knew she’d like it, but I didn’t think she’d move in.”

Michael chuckled. “It was a really good idea, Sam. Thanks.”

“I’d give her the moon if I could, brother.”

They watched for a while longer, and Madeline wandered in and joined them. “You had to go and steal the damn show, didn’t you,” she teased, poking Sam in the ribs.

“Yeah. I did it just to piss you all off.” 

“Can one of you get the tuna out? I’m going to go see if I can get her down from that damn tree,” Madeline grumbled, but there was no heat to it. She winked at Michael as she went past and out the door into the yard, stopping next to Fiona. “How’s little Miss Ballerina Squirrel?” 

“No, we’ve moved on from that game.”

“What is she now?”

Fiona shook her head and smiled. “Some sort of tree-dwelling mermaid? Don’t ask me, I’m just here in case she goes over the side and cracks her skull open.” 

“Excuse me, Miss Mermaid,” Madeline called up toward the tree, and when Lily peeked out from behind the trunk she asked, “Could you come in for lunch, please?”

“Do you have mermaid food?”

“What do mermaids eat?”

“Um.” Lily thought for a second. “Tacos?”

Madeline laughed. “How about a tuna sandwich?”

“‘Kay.”

As Lily grabbed her hippo and started down the rope ladder, Fiona sidled up to Madeline. “Tuna sandwich for a mermaid? Pretty sure that’s a form of cannibalism.” 

Madeline flicked a backhanded swat at Fiona’s hip, but Fiona dodged it and went to collect Lily halfway down the ladder. “You know, Uncle Sam wasn’t the only person who got you a present.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Nope.” Fiona kissed Lily’s nose.

“Who else did?”

“Uncle Nate, for one.”

At the mention of Nate, Lily perked up and looked excitedly towards the house. “Is he here?” 

“No, he’s still in Las Vegas.”

“Oh.”

“But we’ll call him right after lunch, how about that?” Fiona set Lily down once they were inside the door and pointed her toward the hall. “Go wash your hands, please.”

“‘Kay.”

Madeline leaned against the counter where Sam and Michael were dutifully assembling sandwiches. “So Nate gets to go next. Who’s after that?”

“How about you, Mom? Yours is an indoor present,” Michael said, pushing a pair of plates towards the edge of the counter.

“Fine with me,” Madeline replied and looked at Fiona. “You want to take your turn after that, honey?”

Fiona grabbed the plates and headed for the table. “Unless she gives us the slip and gets back outside.”

Lily came back down the hall and they all congregated at the table. The conversation was decidedly tree-focused because the little girl was still hyped up with excitement about her new hideout. This offered Madeline, Michael, and Fiona an opportunity to razz Sam about just how much of a pushover he was, though that backfired spectacularly since he took no issue with the label. In fact, he was practically preening.

“Look, there’s no need to be so jealous just because you didn’t think of it first,” he said, looking excessively proud of himself as Lily returned from putting her plate next to the sink and clambered up into his lap, plastering herself to his front.

Fiona reached over and tickled the bottom of Lily’s foot, making her squeak and tuck it up under herself. “You ready to call Uncle Nate, Lily-girl?”

“‘N a minute,” she replied, her face happily shoved up against Sam’s collar.

Sam untucked Lily’s foot so that her little knee wasn’t poking him squarely in his lunch. “Don’t you want to see what he sent you?”

Lily tightened her hold on him. “Haven’t said thank you hard enough yet.”

Sam laughed. “Trust me, squirt, you did that when you stayed out there  _ all morning _ . Go call Uncle Nate.”

“‘Kay.” 

Lily hopped down and followed Fiona to the sofa. Fiona handed her a package and pulled her laptop over from the side table, dialing Nate on Skype.

The call picked up and Nate appeared on the screen. “What’s up, birthday girl?”

“Hi.”

“Did you see what I sent you yet?”

“Not yet,” she said, and held up the package so he could see it.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it!”

Whatever it was that Nate had sent was wrapped in the Sunday comics pages from the newspaper, and Lily very delicately tried not to ruin them as she took it off.

Nate laughed. “Shred it, kiddo, that’s half the fun.”

“But then Uncle Sam can’t read ‘em to me.”

“That’s a good point.”

A few painstaking moments later Lily got the paper off, carefully picking up the item inside. “What is it?”

“It’s called a dreamcatcher. It’s supposed to catch all the bad dreams and keep them out and only let the good ones through. I thought it might come in handy.”

The dreamcatcher was all done up in deep greens and teals, and from its tassels hung dark purple beads and three perfect peacock feathers. Lily gently ran a finger around the edge of the ring. “It’s really pretty.”

“Mama said green was your favorite, so I got the greenest one I could get.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, kiddo. Happy birthday.”

“Are you coming back soon?”

“I don’t know. Work is kind of busy right now. Maybe in a couple of months, okay?”

“‘Kay.”

“I gotta go. Have fun today, okay?”

“‘Kay. Bye!”

“Bye, kiddo.”

When Nate’s face disappeared, Fiona put the laptop aside. “We’ll hang it up before you go to bed, okay?”

Lily had laid the dreamcatcher out across her legs and was tracing her finger over the intricate webbing in the middle of the ring. “Yeah.”

Michael watched as Fiona carefully picked up Nate’s gift and put it on the end table and out of the way. He went to the sofa and sat down on Lily’s other side, feeling the box in his pocket as he did, but deciding,  _ not yet.  _

Sam and Madeline joined them in the living room, Madeline setting a large box in front of Lily. “That one’s from me, baby.”

Lily looked at the box, then at Madeline, who winked at her. She slid off the couch and sat on the floor next to the box, sliding the bright purple ribbon to one side before attempting to get the lime green wrapping paper off as gingerly as she had with Nate’s present. She almost succeeded, but when she got to the bottom of the box the paper tore and she made a face.

Michael chuckled at Lily’s little frown and picked the box up. “Pull it off the bottom.”

Lily did, and set the paper aside. The top flaps of the box weren’t taped shut and she popped up on her knees to push them open and look inside, her eyes going big for the second time that morning.

“Don’t keep us in suspense, squirt. What’s in it?” Sam asked, as if he didn’t already know that the box contained—as he had told Madeline when she brought it all home—‘half the damned art supply store’.

Lily pulled things out one at a time, setting them down next to her as she went. The pile that amassed consisted of drawing pads, colored pencils, crayons, pastels, paints and paint supplies, markers, a couple of canvasses, colored and patterned scrapbook paper, a giant bottle of glue, stickers and little odds and ends that could be stuck to whatever project Lily decided to undertake, and finally, two multi-section jars full of different colored glitters.

Michael groaned and flopped back against the sofa. “Really, Mom? The stuff that falls off the hippo is bad enough.”

“That’s the beauty of grandchildren, Michael. You can give them things that will drive their parents crazy as revenge for  _ them  _ being unholy terrors when  _ they _ were kids.” Lily was looking at the glitter and chewing her lip, and Madeline followed up with, “Don’t mind him, baby, he just wants something to crab about. You can use all the glitter you want.”

Lily didn’t look convinced. Fiona jabbed him in the ribs, and Michael felt like an ass. “It’s okay, Lily-girl. I’m pretty sure you’re actually made of glitter anyway. What’s a little more?”

She gave him her crooked little grin before getting up and going to Madeline, who picked her up. “Thank you, Gramma. It’s a lot of stuff. It’s gonna last  _ forever _ .”

Madeline laughed. “At the rate you churn out art projects? You’re going to blow through it all by next week!”

Fiona stood up and went to the kitchen, retrieving her present from the upper cabinet. “Come on, Lily-girl. We’re going on a field trip.”

“Why?”

“Because you can’t use this in the backyard.”

 

~~~

 

Fiona had Lily out for a couple of hours playing with her new (modified to meet Fiona’s standards and look like Fiona’s Walther) Airsoft pistol in a vacant lot just outside of town, and the two of them had torn it up and come home giggling and covered in dust. Apparently Fiona had decided to introduce shooting prone to Lily’s rapidly growing practice regimen.

Madeline sent them both straight into the shower with a laugh and a shake of her head and went outside to tell Michael and Sam to stop messing around and get dinner on the grill. The boys took exception to her accusation, but Madeline’s raised eyebrow was all it took to get Sam cooking and Michael picking up the playing cards the two of them had been lazily flicking at a bucket.

Dinner and an excess of ice cream eaten, a very content and slightly drowsy Lily was lounging haphazardly against Michael on the sofa. The box with Lily’s present was digging into Michael’s hip, reminding him of its presence, but as he cast a glance down at his little girl he decided to wait a while longer. “You want to watch a movie or something?”

“Nuh-uh,” Lily replied, running a fingertip up and down the seam in a couch cushion.

He watched her little finger for a few seconds until it stilled in its path at a loose thread and she started scratching at it with her thumbnail, letting out a tiny sigh. “What’s up?”

Lily let go of the thread and turned herself just enough to be able to see Michael’s face. “Can we maybe do something like this again next year? I liked it a lot better than the closet.”

Michael felt it like a kick in the gut every time Lily had a quiet, honest moment like this, and he had to swallow hard before he said, “The only reason you’re ever going to be in a closet from now on is if you’re playing hide-and-seek, Lily-girl.” He pulled her up and twisted her around so she was on her belly rather than her side, and she laid her head on his shoulder, her forehead resting against his neck.

“Daddy?”

“Hmm?”

There was a little pause, and then, “Promise?”

Michael tightened his hold on her.  _ All that ‘little girls are made out of sugar and spice’ stuff is bullshit, _ he thought as he rested his head on Lily’s. The first time Michael had ever held her in his arms he had noticed it; Lily smelled faintly of the ocean, and it put him in mind of the story of Venus, born of the sea and carried ashore on a shell. Naturally, being found in a mangrove swamp beaten half to death wasn’t nearly as beautiful an image, but the connection still held.  _ My little girl is made of the sea and solid fucking steel.  _ He noticed a sparkle on his wrist and smiled.  _ And glitter. Can’t forget about the glitter. _ He kissed the top of Lily’s head. “I promise.”

Lily yawned.

“Tired?”

“Uh-huh.”

He rolled her off the sofa and onto her feet. “Go say goodnight to everybody and brush your teeth, please.”

“‘Kay.” 

As Lily went to the dining table where Sam, Fiona, and Madeline were sitting together, Michael grabbed the dreamcatcher Nate had sent and headed to Lily’s bedroom. He took his time closing the curtains and turning down the bed and was looking for possible places to hang Nate’s present when Lily came into the room.

“Where do you think we should put it?”

Lily looked around. “By the window?”

Michael hung it over the end of the curtain rod. “There? Like that?”

“Yeah. I think the bad dreams come in the window anyway. If they tried to come through the house one of you would see ‘em first and make ‘em stop.”

That was sound five-year-old logic, and Michael couldn’t refute it. “You’re probably right.” Lily got into bed and he sat next to her. “Close your eyes, please.”

Lily did, and laid down.

“No, wait, hang on.”

Lily’s eyes opened. “What?”

“Sit back up and close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

She gave him a quizzical look but did as she was told.

Michael pulled the little box out of his pocket, retrieved the necklace from within it, and fastened it around Lily’s neck. “Okay.”

“What is it?” Lily asked as she pulled the little charm on the necklace out in front of her so she could see it.

“It’s you.” Lily looked at him, confused, so he explained. “It’s a lily.”

“It’s pretty.”

“Turn it over.”

She did, and saw the word on the back. Turning the charm side to side as if that might help her figure it out, she asked, “What’s it say?”

Michael tilted her chin up so they were eye to eye. “Promise.”

Lily got up onto her knees so she could get her arms around his neck, and Michael pulled her into his lap. They stayed like that for a while, until Michael felt her start to droop. She was falling asleep.

“Hey.”

“Huh?”

“Bedtime.”

“‘Kay.”

Michael moved to take the necklace off, but Lily’s hand shot to her throat to pin it in place. “No!”

“Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable with it off while you’re sleeping?”

“I’m not ever  _ never _ gonna take it off.  _ Ever. _ ”

Michael felt a sudden inexplicable glow coupled with a surprisingly comfortable tightness in his chest, and before he really thought about it, he said, “Promise?”

The answer was clear in Lily’s eyes, but she still said it out loud. “I promise.”

 

~*~*~*~   ~*~*~*~   ~*~*~*~


End file.
